Walnut Colonial Revival Side Chair (Ca.1900)

I call this chair a Colonial Revival chair, but it's overall style is really Neoclassical. The chair is made of Walnut and has some very nice carving. A quick look at the glue blocks indicated that this chair was of more modern manufacture, and not that old. I put a date of 1900 on it but that is flexible in either direction. The chair had some cosmetic issues and also needed to be re-glued. It also had a pressed in cane seat that needed to be replaced. The use of pressed in cane to me signals a later date of Manufacture, but I need to do more research to find out when this style of caning first came into use.

Here is a photo of the chair as it came to me. The finish was dirty, but was otherwise in good shape. At first, the color of the chair made me think it was made of Mahogany, but once I really looked at it I realized it was Walnut. Sometimes these two woods can be difficult to distinguish.

This photo shows the old cane seat which is loose and torn.
after removing the seat and the spline. I disassembled the chair to glue the loose joinery. The seat frame was held to the back with screws that were covered over with wood plugs, so I left it intact and glued the leg assembly after cleaning all of the old glue. Here is a photo of the chair dismantled. The blue tape is labeling so I know how to put the chair back together!
This photo shows the chair clamped while the glue is drying.

After the glue had dried, I removed the clamps, cleaned the finish, and added several coats of French Polish to the chair to build the finish back up. Once all of the finish work was done and the chair was waxed, I installed the new seat on the chair. This photo shows the seat being put in place.
The last three photos show the chair completed and with the new cane seat.