A Late 19thC Button-Back Leather Tub Armchair c.1900

SOLD
Origin: English
Period: Late Victorian
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1900
Height: 29” or 13” at seat
Width: 31.5”
Depth: 26”

The comfortable and supple leather armchair in tub form, the whole in burgundy brown leather with a scrolled fanned back to barrel arms, and on tapering legs to brass castors, surviving from the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
 
The chair is in largely original order making it hugely appealing, with the upholstery just on the right side of distressed. It has a replaced leather back and one patched inner flank, please refer to the photographs for a visual reference. It proves a very comfortable chair indeed, perfect for lounging, reading or watching.

This chair could be grouped with that of ‘club’ furniture from the early twentieth century. The word "club" in club chair harks back to the gentlemen's clubs in nineteenth century England where a gentleman could go to get away from his household (including womenfolk). Once there, he would sink into a well-upholstered leather chair and relax with a drink and perhaps a cigar. The names of the fashionable London streets full of such clubs are still used to name classic club chairs : St. James, Piccadilly and so on. A dictionary definition of a club chair or sofa is "A heavily upholstered piece of furniture with arms and a low back". This particular example is attractive because it’s somewhere between club and tub.

Style and comfort in equal measure.
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