Jacobean Chairs in Canada

Jacobean Chairs in Canada

Identification Sought

We have been asked if our readers can identify the family for whom these chairs, six plus two carvers, were made. The enquirer, having checked the motto, believed they had belonged to Scottish Hamiltons, but with the motto placed below the shield Scotland seems perhaps not to be an obvious source. That the boar’s head is erased rather than couped suggests, on balance, that the family is English or Irish, and the absence of a cinquefoil suggests that the family may not be Hamiltons.

The arms are portrayed only with gold paint applied to the leather, but the craftsman has used hatching to depict the tinctures and the wear of time has not destroyed this completely. Gules and Azure are easy to identify, but Or is not, the little dots having expanded with the passing years.

The crest’s tincture is impossible to ascertain but the little escutcheon is hatched Gules and appears to bear a hunting horn, as in the arms. The double collar may be hatched Sable.

Our best shot at the blazon is Or three piles Gules each bearing a hunting horn of the field, a chief vairy Azure and Gold.

Although without its tusks, this may be the boar’s head of the crest.

The vair colour is hatched as Azure and the metal is more probably Or than Argent.

All suggestions sent to the Editor will be gratefully received by the lady in Canada who owns these chairs.

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