FURNISHINGS : Winging It in Stately Seats

With their stately airs and somewhat portly profiles, wing chairs are the granddaddies of fine furniture.

Like grandfathers, they’re often a little wide through the middle, while their curved sides, rolled arms and abundance of upholstery wrap the sitter in a warm embrace.

Wing chairs, also known as grandfather chairs or saddle cheek chairs because their wings were sometimes called “cheeks,” first appeared in the late 17th Century.

How the wing chair got its wings is a matter of speculation. The most prevalent theory suggests the wings were created to help protect one from drafts when sitting in the cavernous mansions of yore.

“Those were the days before they had central heating,” says Susan Fennell, interior designer with Carl’s Fine Furniture in Laguna Hills.

Sali Perkins of Interiors by Lusk/Serengeti in Irvine has an equally plausible hypothesis:

“(Wing chairs) were originally fireside chairs,” she says. “Years ago when they had great big fireplaces, the wings protected your face from the heat.”

Although the wings have largely outlived their usefulness, for purely aesthetic reasons they have never been clipped. With the resurgence of traditional furniture in the 1980s and ‘90s, the 17th-Century wing chairs “are forevermore,” Perkins says.

“A lot of people who like English furniture like (wing chairs),” she says.

As home decorators soon discover, not all wing chairs are created equal.

“Each chair has a different personality,” Perkins says.

Some are wide and chubby, others narrow and slender. Some have tall, straight backs for sitting at the head of the dining table, others have sloped backs conducive to curling up with a good book. Some have arms that curve outward, others keep their arms straight at their sides. Their wings can either be large or small, thin or fat.

“Wing chairs tend to be masculine or feminine depending on the size of the wing and the type of leg,” Fennell says.

Legs on wing chairs come in more shapes than a Broadway chorus line.

One can choose the graceful curves of the Queen Anne style, or the squared-off legs of the Chippendales for a more casual look. For extremely formal settings, there are the heavily carved ball-and-claw legs, Fennell says.

“You picture those in men’s clubs where everyone has a cigar in their mouth,” she says. “The kind we usually see have the Queen Anne leg and a more moderate wing. They’re more feminine, to go with the feminine lines of our furniture today.”

Scaled-down chairs go best with today’s smaller houses, while the heavier wing chairs were the choice of large English manors and French chateaus, Fennell says.

“In older times houses were larger and all of the furniture was exaggerated,” she says. “It would have to be or it would look like dollhouse furniture.”

While wing chairs blend in with traditional settings, such as a classic 18th-Century English living room, many decorators are mixing them with all kinds of styles for an eclectic look. Wing chairs can even pass for contemporary. Lusk/Serengeti has some with straight fabric-covered legs and squared-off tops that go with modern decors.

Wing chairs are a favorite with decorators because they wear their fabrics well. Those tall backs make a perfect canvas for showing off a lush damask or tapestry--the fabric of choice for today’s wing chairs, according to David Abedor of David’s Fine Furniture in Orange.

“It really gives them an Old World look,” Abedor says.

At Lusk/Serengeti, the chairs looked great in a variety of fabrics--floral chintz, yellow damask, striped brocade, plaid silk and even teal-colored leather.

Wing chairs range from $500 to $1,500, according to Fennell of Carl’s Fine Furniture, and the difference in price is often related to craftsmanship.

“A wing chair can look awkward if not proportioned right,” she says. “The arms need to be in proportion to the wings and the back.”

When considering a wing chair, shoppers should look beyond a chair’s pleasing appearance.

Every person who plans to use the chair should take it for a test sitting. Wing chairs vary so much in seat depth and width, that what is cozy to some is claustrophobic to another.

“I can’t sit in this one very long or I’ll go crazy,” says Perkins, jumping out of a narrow chair with wings that jut far out at the sides. She favors a more open wing chair, with a wider spread and smaller wings.

A peek underneath the chair will reveal whether the legs have been fitted to corner blocks on the frame--not screwed directly in so they can weaken and snap off, Fennell says. Legs should have a 20-layer finish for a rich appearance.