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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ghopper1924, post: 2137793, member: 5170&quot;]I knew you were going to say that! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" /> <img src="styles/default/xenforo/smilies/smile.png" class="mceSmilie" alt=":)" unselectable="on" /> ha ha.</p><p><br /></p><p>In designing chair frames the back seems almost always to have been an afterthought, the main function of which (if any) was to add strength to the overall frame. I just went into the living room and looked at a couple of Herter Brothers chairs ca. 1870, then a Pottier &amp; Stymus chair from the same time period. All were designed with the orientation towards the front, i.e. marquetry on the wood frame as well as any stitching or fabric modification. The Herter Brothers chairs have a wood stretcher across the top, covered with fabric, which is attached at both sides down to the seat on the back; there is batting under the fabric as well. Leaving the back of the chair frame &quot;hollow,&quot; without a fabric &quot;screen,&quot; as many did only emphasizes its lack of importance to the structure and longevity of the chair.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Belter and Meeks treatments I mentioned above are exposed wood chair backs illustrating the construction of the chair itself. Belter developed a patented technique in the 1850s, also used by Meeks and a host of other high-end cabinet makers in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, of processing lamented rosewood in multiple layers at right angles to each other. They were shaped in molds called cauls through steam heat, and were then finely carved.&nbsp; The backs of parlor chairs made in this fashion would appear to be finished rosewood, usually curved in some version of a &quot;c&quot; shape, with a crest of pierced carving at the top and maybe the sides as well. If you examine profiles of various rosewood elements of these chairs, you can see the multiple layers. The purpose of these was to add incredible strength to the frame while maintaining a certain light weight overall.&nbsp; Even here, however, the piecework was meant to be viewed from the front; I don&#039;t recall any examples of wood carving that were meant to be specifically seen from the back.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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