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

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

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.
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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 ā€˜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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