A Set of 6 Arts & Crafts Cotswold School English Oak Chairs by Liberty & Co c 1920. A very pleasingly simple but elegant design. Featuring:

• Very well figured quarter-sawn English Oak (quarter-sawing is a way of sawing oak to produce boards with superior strength which also reveals decorative 'medullary rays' in its grain).

• Rush seats.

• 2 splat backs with curved to rail.

• Side stretchers united by a cross stretcher.

Approximate dimensions are:

• Overall Height 990mm (3 feet 2 3/4 inches).

• Overall Width 440mm (1 foot 5 1/4 inches).

• Overall Depth 430mm (1 foot 4 3/4 inches).

• Seat Height 470mm (1 foot 6 1/2 inches) [A standard height for a chair].

c 1920.

This design is shown on page 204 of 'Liberty's Furniture 1875 - 1915: The Birth of Modern Interior Design' by Daryl Bennett, Antique Collector's Club 2012.

Very good condition excellent rich colour and grain, solid joints, sound rush seats with only one or two loose strands and clean overall finish. Some marks and dints discoverable upon close inspection, as expected with an item that has been in use for almost 100 years. If you wish to have further specific photographs or talk to us for a more detailed condition report then please do not hesitate to contact us.

A Prestigious Company in the Design and Marketing of Arts and Crafts Furniture. Renowned for its imaginative design, high quality craftsmanship and famous London based retail location, it has produced some of the most desirable furniture of modern times.

The most British of woods, that can produce really special results. English oak has been used for hundreds of years to construct everything from sea-going vessels to fine furniture. Although oak grows widely across Europe and North America, craftsmen continue to cherish English oak which grows more slowly than its foreign counterparts giving it strength, durability. Quarter sawn boards are very straight grained and have distinctive growth rings and medullary rays that give a very beautiful effect as well as being renowned for their superior stability and strength.

The Cotswold School was a development of the Arts and Craft Movement started largely by Ernest Gimson and the brothers Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. The furniture is instantly recognisable with its simple lines, attention to the finest of details, and use of beautiful materials. Cotswold School designs were crafted from local materials using traditional tools and techniques and with decorative details derived largely from utilitarian elements: exposed joinery, unusual panels, interesting pulls and latches crafted either from wood or from metal using traditional smithing techniques, and close attention to form as well as to wood grain and pattern. Where decorative details were added they generally took the form of traditional embellishment such as exposed joints, chamfered edges and chip carved edge details. The style was embraced and developed by other designers and craftsmen including Gordon Russell, Stanley Webb Davies in Cumbria, Sid Barnsley's son Edward, Arthur Romney Green in Hampshire, Robin Nance in St Ives and Ambrose Heal are a handful of such men out of many. The best developed their own style within the established tradition.