John Warrender (or Warander) was Philip Clissett's uncle, and made very similar chairs to Philip. He died in 1845, early in Philip's career, and there are relatively few of his chairs remaining. Like Philip's chairs, John's are stamped with his initials, IW.

Now, I can't really claim that the chair in the illustration is "new". It's news to me, but has been sitting in the Geffrye Museum (now known as The Museum of the Home) since 2005, and was part of Bill Cotton's collection. I simply didn't know it was there until today, when I was checking the museum collection online - a fairly new facility. In fact I found another relevant chair as well, but more about that later.

The chair is a standard Warrender side chair, apart from one feature - the front stretcher. Normally, chairs by Warrender have the double plain dowel front stretcher that we also commonly see in chairs by his nephew, Clissett, and his son-in-law William Cole. I know of just one example of a Clissett chair with a similar single pattern-turned stretcher, and a couple by Cole - all are the same, and of the same general form as this one by Warrender.

In fact, there are three identical Warrender chairs at the Geffrye. I shall try to see them if I'm ever in London again...

The rate of discovery of new Philip Clissett chairs seems to have slowed, but I came across this one because of a photograph of a William Cole chair in Christopher Gilbert's book English Vernacular Furniture 1750-1900. Enquiries at Leeds led to this unusual armchair also owned by the Gallery. 

The chair is unusual chiefly because it is a spindleback with tapered arm supports, and the broad flat arms - these are exactly the type seen on most of Clissett's well-known ladderbacks. They contrast sharply with the bulbous arms support and the deeper light or heavy arms usually seen on the spindlebacks. This cross-over could indicate that this spindleback is later in date, with a customer demanding these elements from the ladderback. Alternatively, it's equally possible that these elements always existed in Clissett's repertoire, but were rarely used. Unfortunately, in the absence of perfect provenance for the spindleback chairs, we cannot date them to any particular phase of Clissett's life.

The use of these elements from the ladderback links this chair with an unstamped hybrid chair discussed in an earlier post. That chair has pretty good provenance, and the existence of this very similar chair with Clissett's stamp makes it even more likely that it is one of his.

The Leeds chair is also unusual in having a crest rail made from sycamore. Clissett often used cherry for the crest rail and the arms; walnut and laburnum have also been recorded.

A photograph of this chair also appears in Christopher Gilbert's Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall.

I am very grateful to Adam Toole of Lotherton Hall for all his help with this chair, and for providing the photograph.

Here is a list of Clissett's chairs in public and private collections. In most cases, these are not on public display, though I have noted when they are. But, to counter that, they are generally shown on the organisation's website. If you want to see chairs that are not on public display, then this is usually possible if you make arrangements ahead of a visit. In some cases, there is an entrance fee – this will be obvious from the organisation's website.

Where possible, I've given a link to the organisation's website, followed by link(s) to any online information about the chair(s) they hold. In some cases, there is no online information, or only some of the chairs they hold have online details (e.g. the Geffrye Museum).

Not all of the information given on these websites is accurate, and it is always best to use this Philip Clissett website to make any statement about him or his work.

If you know of any other museums or collections holding examples of Clissett's work, please contact us.

Victoria & Albert Museum
Has a ladderback armchair and a very unusual ladderback child's high chair.

Art Workers Guild
The Meeting Hall contains by far the largest collection of Philip Clissett chairs in the world, all ladderback armchairs. That these are by Clissett is well known, so it is odd that the AWG's website now (at the time of writing) claims them to be by Ernest Gimson and his apprentices!

No. 7 Hammersmith Terrace (Emery Walker's House)
Has a single ladderback armchair on display in the dining room (see photo on linked web page).

Geffrye Museum
Has a ladderback chair and two PC-stamped spindleback armchairs.

William Morris Gallery
Has a ladderback armchair.

 Worcestershire County Museum, Hartlebury
Has a ladderback armchair and a number of PC-stamped spindleback chairs.

The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham
Has a ladderback armchair (usually on display as part of the permanent Arts & Crafts exhibition), and a PC-stamped spindleback chair. The ladderback originally belonged to the Arts & Crafts designer Ernest Barnsley.

Herefordshire Museums (Museum Resource and Learning Centre, Hereford)
Has a ladderback armchair and several interesting PC-stamped spindleback and other chairs including two flap-seated prayer chairs.

Butcher Row House Museum, Ledbury
Has a ladderback armchair and a ladderback side chair on permanent display.

New Walk Museum, Leicester
Has a good collection of ladderback armchairs and a side chair (scroll down the linked web page to see several Clissett-made chairs).

Rodmarton Manor, Gloucestershire
Has two ladderback armchairs on display.

Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, Glasgow
Has a single ladderback side chair that's now properly attributed to Clissett/MacLaren, though it's still misattributed to Charles Rennie Mackintosh on the Hunterian web catalogue.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Has a single ladderback side chair. The online record for this chair used to have a photograph of the chair, but this had been removed at the time of writing. It can, however, be seen on Flickr. Note that some of the information about Clissett is incorrect, as is the species of timber the chair is made from.

Crab Tree Farm, Illinois
Has a ladderback armchair originally misattributed to Ernest Gimson but now properly attributed to Clissett and MacLaren (parts of the original misattribution are still showing on the website at the time of writing).