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Windsor Chair Rendered by Louis Plogsted (artist), c. 1939 watercolor, colored pencil, and pen and ink on paperboard overall: 55.7 x 35.8 cm (21 15/16 x 14 1/8 in.) Original IAD Object: 40"high. Seat: 17" from floor and 21" x 16". Index of American Design 1943.8.4155 |
Object 5 of 26
Although the development of American Windsor chairs postdates the Jacobean period, Windsor construction, like the early furniture, relies upon the use of spindles. Because the spindles of the seat back usually fan out from a curved seat, seating space is ample and comfortable. This may account for the continuing use of Windsor chairs throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Windsor chairs originated in England, but American craftsmen developed a wide variety of types that left the English models far behind. Windsor chairs are named according to the style of their back; here is a hoop-back armchair, so-called because of its broadly curving back rail, which has been bent downward to meet the arms. The boldly splayed or angled legs and the delicate spindles set off the generous proportions and sweeping arcs of this chair.
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