Tivro Cane Cartouche Chair

Tivro's back is a cartouche: it widens at the shoulders, draws in slightly at the waist and opens again lower down. The top rail is not a single arch but a line that rises at the centre and falls away to both sides in soft waves; there is no carved crest at the crown. The frame is not bent from one piece: just below the shoulder curve a joint line reads on the stile where the shaped segments meet.

The frame is filled with cane across its whole width. The slim bead on the inner edge both draws the boundary of the weave and repeats the wavy outline of the cartouche once more from within; that double line is the back's entire ornament.

The front legs are curved in the Louis idiom and finish on a small pad foot. Unlike most of its relatives in this batch, Tivro is not left unbraced: a stretcher runs from front leg to rear leg on each side, tying the body together and giving the chair extra rigidity. They sit on the side faces only and both are at the same height; there is no front or rear member and nothing medial. Their diagonal look in the photographs is perspective. The photographs show the bare, unfinished and unupholstered frame alongside the walnut stained version with a mustard fabric upholstered seat.