Pair of George III oak gothic hall chairs, each with a gabled back with gothic tracery between fluted spires, the plank seat with a molded edge on an apron with similar tracery and raised on fluted legs with plinth feet.

England c. 1800
17-" wide x 16" deep x 43" high

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These stylish chairs, while gothic in design, display features typical of neoclassical furniture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The fluted legs and plinth feet have more in common with Greek temples than they do with Gothic cathedrals. Predating the gothic revival of the mid 19th century, they suffer none of the excesses that raised the ire of the critics of the so-called "Churchwardens' Gothic", with its "pretentious designs rich in crockets and pinnacles, but provoking ridicule rather than admiration, from their false proportions and misapplied decorations."(1) Instead, they exhibit the formal restraint characteristic of Georgian furniture and architecture, the combination of which enhances their charm.


(1) Robert Willis, "The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, and of the Colleges of Cambridge and Eton," THE Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal Volume CLXIV (1886): 387-388.