The parts of a chair: seat rail, splat, spindles and front legs

A chair consists of an undercarriage and a back. The undercarriage has four legs, a seat rail – the frame beneath the seat – and often stretchers that tie the legs together near the floor. The back is carried by the back posts, which continue down as the back legs, and has a crest rail at the top and a splat or spindles in the middle. The forms of the parts vary with the styles, and the names are therefore used when describing and dating chairs.

Facts

The undercarriage: legs, seat rail and stretchers

The legs are the chair’s most telling feature for dating. Front legs and back legs are often different: the front legs are on show and decorated, whereas the back legs are simpler and often slope backwards so that the chair does not tip. A cabriole leg is S-curved after an animal’s leg and typical of Rococo, a straight, tapering leg with fluting belongs to the Gustavian style, and a sabre leg, which curves backwards like a sabre blade, to the Empire and Karl Johan styles.

The seat rail is the frame beneath the seat. The legs are tenoned into it, and it is both construction and decoration: curved and carved in Rococo, straight with a moulding or a painted band in the Gustavian style. In the corners there are often corner blocks that brace the frame from the inside. The stretchers connect the legs near the floor; they are common in older and simpler chairs but are often missing when the legs are curved.

The seat

The seat may be upholstered, woven or of solid wood. A drop-in seat, a frame with padding that is placed in the seat rail, is common on Gustavian chairs, whereas an over-upholstered seat is covered over the rail and fixed with tacks or decorative nails. Woven seats of cane are found on Thonet’s chair no. 14, and woven seats of reed, rush or paper cord on simple country chairs.

On a stick chair, such as the Windsor chair, the seat is a thick board of solid wood, and both the legs and the spindles of the back are drilled directly into it. The seat is often scooped out to be more comfortable and carries the whole construction.

The back: posts, crest rail, splat and spindles

The back posts carry the back and on a classic chair are in one piece with the back legs. At the top sits the crest rail, the uppermost rail of the back, which is curved and carved in Rococo and straight or arched in Neoclassicism. On the Chippendale chair the crest rail is curved like a cupid’s bow, with upturned corners.

Between the posts sits the splat, the broad central part, which is often pierced. It is vase-shaped in English and Swedish Rococo and has lyres, medallions or ovals in the Gustavian chair. The back may also consist of spindles, narrow, straight parts, as in stick chairs and in Arts and Crafts chairs with many vertical slats. An upholstered, oval back is called a medallion back and is common on Gustavian chairs.

Arms and armchairs

A chair with arms is called an armchair. The arms are carried by arm supports that stand on the seat rail or continue from the front legs, and they may be padded, have a carved handrest or end in a scroll. With a high back, a deep seat and upholstery the armchair becomes a fauteuil, and a French bergère has closed sides beneath the arms.

The parts of the fauteuil and the chair have the same names, but the form differs: the armchair by Georges Jacob of 1787 has straight, fluted legs and a straight seat rail, whereas a Rococo armchair has curved legs and a carved crest rail. Compare with the chairs in the guide to furniture styles.

The chair without back legs

In the 1920s the classic parts disappeared. The cantilever chair stands on a single bent steel tube without back legs, and the seat is carried out like a balcony. The frame replaces legs, seat rail and back posts alike, and seat and back are stretched between the tubes, of canvas, leather or cane. Read more in the guide to the cantilever chair.

The plastic chairs went even further, with seat, back and base moulded in one piece. The old names of the parts are still used when describing them, because the same functions have to be fulfilled: something to sit on, something to lean against and something that holds it up.

What to look for

Try describing a chair from top to bottom: the crest rail, the splat or spindles, the back posts, the seat, the seat rail, the legs and the stretchers. Then ask of each part whether it is straight or curved, carved or plain, and whether it seems to belong with the others. A Rococo crest rail on Gustavian legs is a transitional chair, or a married one.

The diagram below shows the parts of the chair from the front and the cantilever chair from the side. More furniture terms are given in the guide to furniture terms and in the glossary, and how the legs and joints date a chair is shown in the guide to how to date an antique chair.

How to recognise it

Exercise

What is the frame beneath the seat that ties the legs of the chair together called?