A rare Charles I oak joint stool, Taunton, Somerset, circa 1630


The six-pegged top with a triple-reeded edge, all rails with run-moulding over a bold bicuspid-shaped and chamfered lower edge, raised on elaborate baluster-turned legs, joined by side stretchers and a broad central stretcher, all stretchers having moulded upper edges, 47.5cm wide x 27.5cm deep x 58.5cm high, (18 1/2in wide x 10 1/2in deep x 23in high)
|Literature:Tobias Jellinek, Early British Chairs and Seats 1500 to 1700 (2009), illustrates two highly comparable joint stools, referred to as 'very fine and extremely rare', pp. 228-229, plates 294 and 295. A further example, dated to 1600, is illustrated in Helena Hayward, World Furniture (1973), p. 59, pl. 180. Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (2016), notes that the centre stretcher is rare in stools, though common in benches, and illustrates a fourth example, p. 226, fig. 3:98.Apart from the same stretcher arrangement all the aforementioned illustrated examples have virtually identical bicuspid-shaped friezes. The most notable difference in the stools' design is in the treatment of the leg turnings, however, an overall similarity in leg design still prevails. It would, therefore, appear that these rare H-shaped stretcher joint stools are from the same workshop or, at the very, least originate from the same region. A number have been found in the West Country, particularly around Taunton.