Set of 6 Philip Clissett Arts & Crafts Cotswold School Ash Ladderback Chairs

Philip Clissett (1817 to 1913): A Victorian country chairmaker who influenced and inspired the English Arts and Crafts Movement, furnished the meeting room of the Art Workers Guild and influenced Ernest Gimson who spent six weeks with Clissett learning to make ladderback chairs. Clissett's chairs were also used by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in early commissions, lissett's chairs are now widely collected, and can be found in various museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Geffrye Museum and the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum

Ash: Ash is a straight grained and very tough timber, characterised by a wide colour range from the whites of the outer layers to the dark olive brown of the heart wood. This colour variation can be used to create a striking visual effect

The Cotswold School was a development of the Arts and Craft Movement started largely by Ernest Gimson and the brothers Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. The furniture is instantly recognisable with its simple lines, attention to the finest of details, and use of beautiful materials. Cotswold School designs were crafted from local materials using traditional tools and techniques and with decorative details derived largely from utilitarian elements: exposed joinery, unusual panels, interesting pulls and latches crafted either from wood or from metal using traditional smithing techniques, and close attention to form as well as to wood grain and pattern. Where decorative details were added they generally took the form of traditional embellishment such as exposed joints, chamfered edges and chip carved edge details.The style was embraced and developed by other designers and craftsmen including Gordon Russell, Stanley Webb Davies in Cumbria, Sid Barnsley's son Edward, Arthur Romney Green in Hampshire, Robin Nance in St Ives and Ambrose Heal are a handful of such men out of many. The best developed their own style within the established tradition