Featured $100 chairs I was going to paint until...

I looked closer. I think they may have been hand carved and although I can't understand the scribble on the underside of the chairs, I'm wondering if the date 21/1/13 is actually 1913 not 2013. If they are hand carved and antique, that makes them more art than furniture and I can't mess with someone's art! I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

Hi. Tams. Nice picture, though it would be helpful to edit and click full image. They need the scribble picture. You posted two of the same.

 

Nice chairs!! I think you're going to need to get closer pictures of the carving to get opinions on whether it's hand-done. And pictures of construction would help with age.

 

How lovely ! Dont paint them ! Just guessing here,but maybe Anglo Indian,1900 or so ? Maybe Teak ? Better pics please !

 

Sorry, I was struggling with the resizing that now requires a separate app on my new phone. Here is a pic of the underside

 

Here hopefully are a couple with better detail of the carving. [

 

JMHO.
wood looks too new to be Anglo-Indian or from another place with high humidity.

 

I ...imo....wouldn't paint them...but I also wouldn't say they're 100 years old either..

 

The wood looks very much like teak to me ...

 

Seems like painting these would be pretty tedious.

 

They are hand-carved from teak wood in Jepara, Java, Indonesia.
They were meant to show the beautiful teak. But if you want to paint them, they are yours, and not antique imo. As Shwikman said, it would be pretty tedious, I wouldn't want to sand all that detail, for one thing. Painting them could also mean loss of detail.

Maybe @Silver Wolf has an idea of the value, he lives not too far from Jepara.

 

Mighty pretty detail.

 

What A.J. said.

My take is western Aesthetic-era Victorian reinterpreted in contemporary Indonesia. Nice wood and detail, but not old.

 

Maybe call it late 19th century style instead of Victorian? Java was Dutch at that time, and we never had Victoria.
We call this style Dutch colonial Jepara or Dutch colonial Javanese.

 

Fair enough, although here in the U.S. we use "Victorian" freely to refer to the era, although we never had a Victoria, either.

 

Would not paint these. Very well could have a wax or oil finish that would not take paint well. You would have a chippy peeling mess in no time if not properly prepared. Besides, these are hand carved despite not being all that old.

 

Since the popularity of painting furniture is just so darn popular, there are now a number of "no prep" paints on the market.

I haven't used any, but the internet cheers.

(EDIT: @verybrad would obviously know way more about this than I do, lol)

 

Work pretty well but….. depends on what you are not prepping

 

You had no monarch, but were still influenced by British fashions, that may be it.
We were more influenced by our close neighbours on the Continent than by the distant Brits on the other side of the Channel. And we had our own monarchs (to worry about).