Research:
Of mahogany. The low open backs with set with paired shaped pierced splats joined at the rear by a central upright. The shaped curved toprail continuing into scrolled handholds on turned armrests above an upholstered seat. Raised on three quadrangular legs with fluting to the fronts.
The ladder back chair, which first appeared during the Restoration period in England, was revived in the middle of the eighteenth century. The model was “a common design in country furniture and usually made of British indigenous woods such as ash, elm or beech. [However, it] was refined in leading metropolitan workshops, including Edinburgh, as in this case, with the use of mahogany,”1 and made fashionable by the leading cabinetmakers of the time, including Grendey, Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Gillows.
The pierced fret shapes, “embellished in a variety of ways in the hands of different makers,”2 were also described as ‘fiddle-back;’ “the name would seem to have originated from a fancied resemblance between the open spaces in the lateral bars and the sound holes of a violin. “3 An example by Gillows may be found in Plate 3 of this company’s Colour Sketch Book, which illustrates designs for upholstered fiddle-back arm and side chairs (figure 1).
Full research report available on request.