Featured Help with chairs?

Thanks for looking, was hoping someone could help with age and style of these chairs, regards Joe.

 

Nice! Rococo Revival ca. 1860.

 

Hi,
I love the chairs but HATE the fabric!!!!! I would love to see them in a dark burgundy velvet.
greg

 

Greg, I can picture that, it would be perfect.

 

Someone replaced the original velvet, probably in the 1950s. You could use something funky, but I'd go back to the darker velvet too on these.

 

Very pretty chairs. . I agree, the fabric's pattern competes with the form of the chairs. Question. . whats the difference between Baroque revival and Rococo revival in terms of design when it comes to chairs such as these ?

 

Baroque and rococo are exuberant, late stages of classicism from the 16th & 17th centuries. As far as revival furniture goes, the rococo revival happened in the 19th century, denoting an extravagantly carved furniture type ca. 1840-70.
I've never seen furniture called baroque revival, though I suppose its possible.
In most furniture timelines the rococo revival is followed by the renaissance revival.

 

In some areas of Europe, Germany for example, I think they call rococo "baroque", i am not sure about that and don't know why. Means the same thing though, heavily carved/decorated furniture.

 

Rococo is a little more toned down.

 

Thanks for the help and thoughts, the chairs are in pretty good shape, I am tempted to restore them, but I more of a MCM person.

 

form of lower part - legs and frame with seating - is purest Louis XV..
the rest on top is a crime. Victorian ? Italian ?

 

I personally like an eclectic mix of styles so fussy with simple can work

Now decorating is really not my thing so I hesitate to make suggestions but if a dark traditional velvet doesn't appeal to you, what about something like a natural linen or something else plain and light?

But then I could use some decorating tips myself so don't go by my vision

 

I have no problem with decorations. my late mom seems to have been stashing a depot of drugs from the late 60s somewhere.

but perhaps you see the difference ...

 

I have not heard the term Baroque Revival used in the study of furniture styles. To paraphrase American furniture professor Oscar Fitzgerald, Baroque itself was a late 17th century reaction to the late Renaissance's strict classicism, and turned to experimental lack of structure and relationships, an asymmetrical disharmony. In furniture it appears as elaborate carvings, heavy turnings and a plastic, dynamic sense of movement.
Rococo revival gives a nod to the French and King Louie styles, with cabriole legs, balloon-backs, serpentine seats, arched stretchers, lots of "S" and"C" scrolls, carved fruit and flowers on crests, and eventually ,with the advances of steam-bent wood, lamination and scroll saws, curved and elaborately pierced and carved frames. J.H. Belter's pieces sum up the apex of this over-embellishment. This and a glut of poorly designed and overly decorated machine mass-produced furniture were largely responsible for the reactionary Arts and Crafts Movement as a cry to return to simplicity of design and hand-made crafts. Photo- JH Belter sofa, 1850-60, courtesy of the Met Museum.

 

what an atrocity ! but what courage to show it in a museum.
they didn't even forget the col de cygne form of the Empire on the lower front ends of the armrests.

 

At the end of the day, I guess 'Baroque style' is the term to apply to 19th century pieces since there was no large scale popular demand for it like there was for the Rococo... hence the term revival.. Here is entry in Joseph Aronson's furniture book from 1938 offering a distinction between the two styles.... 'The Baroque withal is a masculine style, virile and blustering and bold. It's counterpart, the Rococo, came in the 18th c., substituting prettiness and charm for Baroque magnificence.'

 

No accounting for taste, but it is quite a feat of technology what Belter accomplished with layers and layers of curved laminate. Although I wouldn't have this is my home, I would be very happy to own one so I could sell it for big bucks!

 

Like it, love it or hate it what Belter (and his contemporaries J. and J. Meeks) accomplished with rosewood has never been equaled. The skill involved is superlative. There is simply nobody in 2019 who has the skill to accomplish this level of execution. Ikea? Can anyone say "pressed sawdust?"

I'd love to have some - perhaps a more restrained - version of this in my home, just to p.o. modernists, if nothing else.

 

Tell you what, Hal Hunt only has 1 auction sale a year i think but he sells some of the best victorian furniture in the nation, with prices to go with it. Mostly Museum quality stuff, he gives the auction guys in New Orleans a run for their money in victorian furniture and, NOLA is a place where victorian sells well.
https://www.halhunt.com/

 

That's what I'm talkin' about!