Featured Help ID a possible 17th century chair

I recently acquired this supposedly Charles the second arm chair and was wondering if there are any experts in 17th century English furniture here that can help. The elderly woman I purchased it from said the chair had belonged to her grandmother, who used to own an antiques shop and frequently made trips to England to buy furniture pieces to sell in her shop. From what I can gather on the interweb, this chair has all of the characteristics of a genuine Charles the second chair, including irregular hand carved details, peg fitted joints, original canning and rough cut wood. I believe the chair seat was originally cane as well but has been replaced with a velvet cushion. Can anyone help identify the authenticity of my chair as well as give an approximate date for it?

 

BTW, is it better to upload pictures as thumbnails or full image? Mine aren’t very clear when clicked on, but I uploaded them as full images.

 

full image......... always

 

The furniture gurus will likely want to see photos of the underside of the seat, the joinery, etc.

Looks like a Victorian piece to me but WDIK.
I look forward to seeing what the experts think!

 

I believe the seat, which i think would have originally been caned, has been replaced with the velvet cushion. After pulling back the fabric it appears that all the original old walnut has been replaced with a cheap secondary wood that’s held to the legs with metal straps.

 

Thinking that this is late 19th Century, perhaps ca. 1900. Lots of period details including barley twist stretcher and stiles, stitch caning, acanthus leaves etc.
Keep in mind that the Victorians loved the 17th Century!

 

IDK, the construction is way too rough in my opinion; the use of wooden pegs in joints, the clear hand cut parts, the overall age of it seems to be quite early. I thought the later, nineteenth century pieces were much more uniform in appearance due to machine made pieces.

 

Hopefully, you'll show us these ... with large close-up photos!
(All the photos provided so far are rather small.)

 

I agree, Circa 1900. The less refined carving leans late Victorian. There was a lot of industrial volume hand carving combined with machined construction at this time - copes of 17th & 18th century pieces. This chair of mine is ca. 1900, though a different design, quality walnut, pegged. Fix them and love them ~ they're wonderful !

 

The wear on the arm rests, showing a much lighter colour wood, is a sign that this is a later copy which was stained to look antique. Wear on period arm rests would show a warmer colour, much closer in tone to the rest of the chair.
Of course by now it is antique, just not 17th century.

Also, I am not sure they already used this Southeast Asian style of caning in 17th century Britain. It was introduced in the Netherlands from the Dutch East Indies in the late 17th century, but early examples are rare. The Portuguese might have had it too, given that they were early colonizers in the region, but it would be roughly the same time frame.

As a rule, 17th century and earlier European chairs had wood, leather or fabric seats and backs, some more modest chairs had seagrass, rush etc seats which were thick and tightly 'woven'.
A chair of this type would usually have a velvet seat and back.

It is a beauty though, and will be even more so after a lot of care.

 

Here are some hopefully clearer pictures of the wooden pegs that are found throughout this walnut chair, as well as pictures of the rough features of the backside of the legs. Due to the lack of uniformity on the entire piece I’m still questioning the late nineteenth century thought. From the barley twists to the carvings nothing is uniform: with the more modern age of industrialization and the use of machinery in woodworking it’s hard to imagine crafting a chair entirely by hand in that era, but perhaps so.

 

More pic’s

 

Very good photos - they do show hand done construction and hand done Barley twist work does indeed suggest early. Most all post 1850 pieces would be a machined uniform look. I'll hold back on saying late Victorian era . . . if it were mine, I'd show it to a person who knows period furniture and can put their hands on it. Also, I forgot to mention, that's a nice chair, I really like this aesthetic. The age is an open question.

 

Overhere in the Netherlands there was a revival of these chairs in the 18th century, so that is a possibility. By that time cane seats were also popular.

 

Thank you Drew, much appreciated. I was able to increase the pixel size on the photos so it shows more detail. I know some of the earlier pictures just don’t capture the non-uniformity of the piece, but seen in person there is absolute nothing machine made on this piece other than the replacement seat frame. That’s a puzzler for me: as far as I’ve been able to discover Charles the second chairs of my sort almost always had caning on the seat as well as the back, so why was the original 17th century walnut seat frame replaced with a later frame of machine made wood?

 

Too much woodworm damage maybe? Looks like they had a feast at some stage. I'm sure it is all safe now.

 

True: this chair is riddled with holes!