546 - Two Regency style armchairs, carved swans, stringing, sabre legs, probably 19th century

Two Regency style armchairs, carved swans, stringing, sabre legs, probably 19th century Hardwood, probably mahogany, two identical armchairs in Regency style, also known as Trafalgar chairs, red-brown frame. Backrest with a turned, spirally fluted rail between the backward-curving rear uprights, below a back panel with flame figuring and light stringing forming a rectangular frame, in the centre of the back a pierced carved splat with two facing swans holding in their beaks a drapery swag knotted into a loop at the centre and set with a flower. Curved armrests with scrolled volutes, trapezoidal seat rail, sprung upholstered seat with red covering, seat rails, uprights and sabre legs with light stringing. Condition commensurate with age, one chair with losses, swan decoration there loosened, one strip missing. Each 84x56x58 cm (HxWxD), seat height 48 cm. The form with sabre legs, uprights flowing in a curve into the back and a top rail worked as a twisted rope derives from the ancient Greek klismos and became known in England as the Trafalgar chair after the naval battle of Trafalgar in 1805; the term is documented from 1808. Such chairs belong to the English Regency style of the early 19th century, the counterpart to French Empire, and remained a model for reproductions until the late 19th century. The swan motif became popular in the Empire period through Empress Joséphine and the furnishing of the Château de Malmaison, the Parisian ébéniste Jacob-Desmalter used it for the Napoleonic court, and in the Biedermeier period the swan was regarded as a symbol of grace and fidelity. Stringing consists of narrow strips of veneer in contrasting wood, only a few millimetres wide, inlaid into the surface as lines and frames, giving the seat furniture of Neoclassicism and Biedermeier its clear outline. A set of matching Regency chairs included two corresponding armchairs, also called fauteuils in furniture history.