Slat-Back Chair Age and Origin?

[Webster734]

Any help identifying this chair age and/or geographic origin is appreciated!

I cant find anything similar online but I'm hoping someone's seen this before. The chair doesn't appear to be oak but some other light colored hardwood. The seat was especially interesting because of the support underneath.... I've not seen that before but clearly primitive with rough sawn and hand shaped wood. Height from floor to seat is about 14.75 inches. Total height of chair is approximately 38 inches. Width of seat in front is 15 inches and in the back it's 12.75 inches.

The original seat edge cover exists in the back only and is made of veneered wood inserted into tenon slots and nailed as shown in the picture. Side and front covers are old replacements made of some sort of composite board and aren't fastened, just slid into the tenon slots. Discolored nail holes can be seen behind these replacements and are consistent with the back cover configuration. This discoloration also leads me to believe the rush seat is the original. The top rail (laid horizontally on top) has also been repaired. The original rectangular head nails (as evidenced by the depressions still seen) have been replaced by round head nails at some point.

Another neat feature are the wormholes that exist everywhere on the chair. I think its seen some history but I'm having difficulty nailing it down. I appreciate any information anyone can provide!

 

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[unclemac]

I have a similar yet very different chair myself. Mine has round legs and no top, with a rope seat. But all in all constructed very much the same. My chair came across the plains in a covered wagon in the 1870's (family piece). My chair is a common home made farmer chair, someone with common tools and basic carpentry skills of the era. I could make this chair today with the hand tools I have inherited from my great grandpa and the maple available to me on my land. that being said...this sort of chair was made the world over from Asia to Europe to America. Given the restorations to your chair I doubt the seat is original.

all in all a nice chair...where did you get it?

 

[Webster734]

Thanks for the reply Unclemac! I found this at an estate sale a couple weeks ago. When I flipped it over and saw the seat supports basically whittled by hand I knew I wanted it. All in all it was a handsome piece of history that I knew I could display proudly. I'm not an expert so when I wasn't able to find anything similar online I thought it may be readily identifiable to someone else with more knowledge of this sort of thing. It's not a family piece like yours with a known history unfortunately so hopefully I can piece together enough info to figure out how it got to a rural home in Michigan. In the meantime it looks sweet in the kitchen and at least for now I can tell the grandkids it probably belonged to a cowboy a long long time ago ��.

 

[unclemac]

google this...handmade chair ladder back

https://www.google.com/search?newwi...1.11.0....0...1c.1.53.img..11.0.0.LLPYJAhKVN0


and this....square nails

https://www.google.com/search?newwi....10.0....0...1c.1.53.hp..0.10.814.QWSvvAgoOps


for very little money you can replace your round nails with what should be there.