The Clissett ladderback chair, designed by James MacLaren, was an important element of the Arts & Crafts Movement in the late 19th century. It has figured prominently in recent publications about the period. Usually, the accompanying text is short on detail and sources, so I've been keen to create a clearer picture of how Clissett's chairs were seen at the time. Some things are obvious, such as the superb collection of Clissett's chairs at the Art Workers Guild in London - that's one of their chairs on the left. But there's a lot more information if you look for it.

So, at long last, I've more or less completed the work on Clissett and the Arts and Crafts Movement. The aim has been to test some of the statements made in the past about Clissett, and to find and publish evidence of his chairs in use in the early days of their popularity. It's possible to show the famous ladderback being used by well known artists and architects. The real surprise has been the extent of their use by the Garden City architects, and the extent to which the chairs were copied, or at least used as the basis for "new" designs. I wrote some time ago about their possible use by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and that text has been taken down and incorporated (in shortened form) in the new piece.

This new section of Philip Clissett's biography can be found on the biography page as Part 4.

I've just uploaded to the website my new article on the link between Philip Clissett and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The research was sparked by this chair, advertised by Russell Theaker of the Cane and Rush Workshop, and bought by my sister-in-law (this is it's original condition, but Russell did a great job of re-seating it so do check him out).

In researching out this style of chair, I noticed that some apparently identical chairs were labelled by auction houses and dealers as by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and usually sold for astonishing prices. Digging further revealed that, while a chair like this had been (somewhat tentatively) attributed to Mackintosh in the 1970s, that attribution had never been certain and was withdrawn fully in 2010.  Those chairs are indistinguishable from the one shown here, and are almost certainly by Philip Clissett. As a newcomer to this field, I find it worrying that a tentative attribution can have such an effect on prices.

Even worse, despite the withdrawal of attribution, at least one dealer is, right now, advertising several of these chairs as by Mackintosh. So, if you're in the market for an  early chair by C.R. Mackintosh, take care! And check out my new article for more information...