'Am I not a Man and a Brother?', cameo released by Josiah Wedgwood in 1787. Image copyright: British Museum.

The stick-back, comb-back, or as it is more widely known, the Windsor chair, is one of the most recognisable items of furniture in existence. It is also undeniably English, originating in the Chilterns and Thames Valley region around Windsor (hence the name), the latter becoming a central hub for the trade. A true Windsor chair is defined by its construction; while many chair types employ continuous stiles that form both back support and back leg in a single piece, all of the supporting stiles on a Windsor chair are dowelled into the seat piece, which is thus the central connecting section of the whole chairOne of the earliest surviving records for the production of Windsor chairs comes from the accounts of Lord Stanhope, who acquired a set of ‘Forrest’ chairs in the 1720s for Chevening House in Kent. Several dozen of these, named for their painted decoration and external use, were inventoried among his garden tools and wheelbarrows, and for good reason. Early examples like these would have been made by carpenters whose trade was otherwise dominated by the construction of cart wheels, wheelbarrows, and other utility objects. They were, and remain, similarly utilitarian; light and portable on account of their skeletal back rests, and often painted with resistant, lead-based green or grey paints to weatherproof the wood, though early makers also advertised them unpainted; “in the wood”.

Animals have always held a fundamental position in the development of cultures. Whether they constitute our food, our companions, or our deities, we have represented them in images for thousands of years.

Some of you may be reading about the recent sale of a painting made in 1932, by the American artist William Robinson Leigh, entitled 'Home Sweet Home'. In fact, the work, which sold for $1.195 million on the 5th November, beat the artist's previous sale record and thrust his name further up the list of auction highlights for 2011. It also continues the growing trend for pre-war American landscape painters that reflects an all too tardy desire to understand and interrogate the turbulent history of the USA.

For this (rather extended) entry, I have chosen to discuss the humble chair; a necessity of design and civilisation, and the most comonplace piece of furniture in any home. It is an object that has provided us with service for thousands of years, raising us up from the ground and away from the dirt. It has also traditionally been used in visual culture to identify the king among his court; from the great seated Pharoahs guarding the temple of Rameses II, to the throne of Solomon and our own Coronation throne at Westminster, and from medieval manuscript illumination to Ingre's portrait of the necessarily seated Napoleon.

The pros and cons of buying from an antique dealer

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Neoclassical movement in art and design had fully permeated society. Its culmination came with the profuse artistic patronage of the then prince regent, George IV, between the years 1811 and 1820. The epicentre of what we now call the Regency period occurred during these nine formative years, though as we shall see it continued well beyond this period. It was a time of great innovation and luxurious creation, and the prince regent sparked a new trend in furniture design that took influence from France (where the Directoire style had in turn taken cue from Classical sources), the Far East, Egypt and the Moorish and Indo-Saracenic cultures with whom the English were trading.

A look at Neoclassicism in English furniture design.

A look at the cultural politics behind the continuing rise in auction-house sale records

The antiques trade can seem, at times, to be a weird and wonderful aspect of modern life. After all, dealers and collectors around the country, and for that matter around the globe, invest in objects that typify tradition and taste, and portray fantastically rich and complex social histories. This can often throw up strange things, quirky adjuncts to the recognised and the useful. For these we all visit places like Portobello market, to root out personal ephemera and private passions, and the hunt through the crowds nearly always pays off (even if it's just the pint next to the pub fire at the end of the morning's foraging).

An exhibition of contemporary art situated alongside Old Masters, curated by Matthew Reeves, who has recently joined the team at Reindeer Antiques.