Rocking Chair What style is this

New Year's resolution is to clean out my barn and I'm finding stuff I don't remember buying or putting in there.
I have 2 of these rockers, hoping to find out what style these are and age. 39" in height, 15" x 16" seat. What is the seat made of? Looks like this all fits together, no screws or nails anywhere.

 

Shaker in style, hickory or oak perhaps, spindle back, rush seat. 1900 or so.

 

Seat is woven split wood. Chair is a country flared spindle back for lack of a better descriptor. Sort of a variation of a fan-back windsor chair but I wouldn't really characterize this as a windsor chair. Little different than most. Seems to have some age to it but not antique.

 

Whoa! course it's woven split wood. Don't know why I blurted rush, Might be my O.F. disease..........Shorry!

 

Thank-you milestoneks & brad! The seat is very dry and brittle, can I put some oil on it or just leave it? I wouldn't use these for sitting, just for display.

 

You have a barn?

 

If that is paint residue I see, you may want to rid of that with elbow grease and sand paper. Then clean with turpentine and stain and/or wax the wood. As for the woven seats, I would dampen with water/sponge ever so often, which keeps them somewhat pliable.

 

lol, Yes Wendy, and it is full of stuff!
Thanks Milestoneks. Yes, there is paint on the underside of the seat, looks like drips. The chairs were painted at one time, some still showing in areas.
I'll dampen the seat before I try and remove the paint as the seat is so brittle.

 

It's not a Shaker chair in part because some of the rungs were turned with decorative details. It's rabbit eared country spindle back with that windsor influence verybrad mentioned. Vernacular country Victorian or some such.

Wet the entire chair down, especially at the joints and that seat, and let it dry and then oil it, and consider waxing it to hoild the oil and water in.

I learned this from a luther who restores antique musical instruments: All products that were once living (wood, silk, cotton) have the same requirements they did when they were alive. Wood is supposed to have moisture in it. When it doesn't, it shrinks ( why the legs become loose) and brittle. Further proof of this is that wood glue does not adhere to the wood fibers, but to the moisture in the wood. This is why you can glue an antique and either the glue does not hold or the thing breaks right next to your repair. To do a glue repair, only use wood glue. Glues that expand, like gorilla glue and glues advertised as 'tite fit' for chair legs are the very worst thing you can use, because they expand and weaken the wood. Wet both ends of your piece to be glued down let it sit and soak in before applying wood glue. Always buy no larger a botle than you will use up in a year because wood glue loses it's adherability after about a year (At my house Santa refreshes mine every year).

I'm a thrid generation antique dealer collector and a carver of wood dolls ( with joints that get loose over time). I regretably did not learn any of the above until I found a good guitar with a broken neck and decided to see if I could do a reasonable repair on it. I should have put more thought into it - I restore textiles and know how much silks in particular need moisture and air (also contrary to popular thought). I followed the instructions I just gave and my repair was perfect - and still is, a decade later - even with the stress of strings pulling on it.

I periodically use an eyedropper of water on the arm and leg joints of both my antique and new dolls and wipe them down with a damp cloth. I do the same with the split oak seats on my chairs, on baskets and other woods that are prone to getting brittle with time.

That is a very nice chair - it has particularly nice lines. The spindle foot rail might have been a replacement at some point. People rested their feet on that bar and they did break, plus that rail does not fit the style of the rest of the chair. The seats were also 'sat out' and replaced. Replaced seats with some age do not affect value. Replaced foot rails in a different style might.

 

Thank-you @Lulululu ! I ended up leaving the two of them outside for a few days - we were having heavy fog then so there was lots of moisture in the air. When I brought them in I was able to get most of the paint off the seats. What kind of oil would you suggest?