Turners chair

This three-legged Turner’s chair was a popular style of chair in Britain from the sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Made by men called ‘wood turners’, this Turner’s chair is comprised of three legs and linking seat rails, which act as grooves enabling the triangular oak panel seat to be locked into place. The high back is locked into the front, with the back legs and all these joints using the turner’s mortice-and-tenon construction. The turner’s tools are chisels and gouges, as well as a basic pole lathe, and great skill was required by the turner in the manufacture of this chair.

In this example, each section is patterned with ring-turned decoration and the high back is further enriched with attached turned buttons and knobs. Despite missing its front three vertical turnings, which link the cross stretcher to the seat rail, the Turner’s chair is fairly complete, with only minor later additions.

This chair was part of a group of English furniture acquired in 1947 by the Gallery through Ralph Edwards, Keeper of Woodwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.