This lovely chair comes from Queen Mary’s First Class Writing Room Chair.
The Queen Mary was quite advanced and was one of the first ships from which passengers could call anywhere in the world whilst at sea. However letter-writing was still an important part of the voyage and a popular past-time. Queen Mary provided a beautiful and comfortable room for passengers to “catch up on their correspondence in a atmosphere of detachment and silence.”
This chair is complete with style, curves and notches and is brimming with quality and 1st Class. The figured veneer on here is simply outstanding. I believe this is Ash burr, just looking at this you can tell how lovely and aged this wood is to have such a nice figuring. You won’t find burr like this anymore. The rest of the room also used lovely wood to complete the space. Pre-war the walls were chestnut oak and the tables were also white ash burr. From The Ship of Beautiful Woods, “(The tables) are fitted with pink pear-tree letter boxes and banded with the same cheerfulness; it swirling lines reminded me of a mill pool in late Summer.” A perfectly apt description of the figuring, and what I wouldn’t give to find a Writing Room table to go with my chair.
When we had our chair restored we used this historical photo from the souvenir book “My Voyage” as a basis for picking out the fabric. I think we found as close a match as we could.
The fate of the Writing Rooms are a sad one, originally there were two on board (one on each side of the ship just outside the Main Lounge). During her sailing days Cunard frequently made changes on board and these rooms were changed some. The Port side Writing Room later became a Radio and Phone Room as radios became more popular. In Long Beach during the rip out these areas were completely converted and they turned the Starboard side into a restroom and the Port side became a shop. Currently Stacks is located where the Port side one used to be.
Thankfully there is some furniture left to remind of such a lovely and peaceful spot on board.
If you are looking to sell any fittings, furniture, or memorabilia from the Queen Mary please contact me at craigslink2now@gmail.com.
Cunard White Star: RMS Queen Mary 