Victorian Wicker and Cane: What Makes It Worth Buying

Victorian wicker and cane furniture was one of the great disregarded categories of the antique trade for about forty years, from around 1980 to 2020. It was seen as fragile, difficult to restore, and hopelessly out of fashion. Then, roughly five years ago, the market started moving. Not dramatically, but steadily. Pieces I could have bought for 40 pounds in 2015 now sell for 200 to 400.

I bought a Victorian conservatory chair, provenance unknown but with a good original label under the seat, at a house clearance in Whitby in 2016 for 25 pounds. It is now worth about 350. That is not a life-changing return but it is a real one, and it reflects a genuine shift in taste that I do not think has finished playing out yet.

What Victorian wicker actually was

Wicker and cane furniture were not the same thing, though they are often confused. Wicker refers to the weaving technique: strips of pliable material woven around a frame. Cane specifically refers to rattan cane, one of the materials used for wicker weaving but not the only one. Willow, reed, and paper cord were all used in Victorian wicker at various price points.

The Victorian period saw an enormous production of woven furniture, particularly for conservatories, seaside pavilions, and porches. Cane and rattan came into Britain in vast quantities from the East India Company trade, and then increasingly from Southeast Asia through the second half of the nineteenth century. British and American makers turned this raw material into furniture in factory quantities.

The high-end pieces were made by named firms with recognised makers' labels. Dryad, in Leicester, was one of the largest British producers and their labels are worth looking for. The American firms Heywood-Wakefield and Wakefield Rattan produced enormous quantities for both the American and export markets, and their labelled pieces command premiums.

Reading the construction

Victorian wicker construction tells you a lot about age and quality. The features to look for:

Frame timber. Good Victorian wicker was built around a solid wooden frame, usually beech or ash, sometimes oak. Cheaper Victorian pieces used softer frames or reed frames, which do not survive as well. Twentieth-century wicker often used bent laminated wood, which is a different construction method. If you can see the frame timber through gaps in the weaving, it should look like a hundred-year-old piece of hardwood, dry and slightly weathered.

Weave complexity. The best Victorian wicker has complex weaving patterns, often with multiple materials and different weave densities in different parts of the piece. Cheap Victorian pieces used single-material single-pattern weaving. Twentieth-century mass-market pieces often used very simple weaves with wide spacing.

Fittings. Original Victorian brass or iron fittings, particularly on rockers and porch chairs, are heavy and hand-made. Replacement fittings from later restorations are usually lighter and more uniform. Look at the screws holding fittings to the frame: original screws have off-centre slots and irregular thread pitch.

Feet or castors. Original Victorian castors are cast iron or brass, often with the maker's name stamped on them. Replacements are usually plastic or thin pressed metal. The original castors are a significant value factor, and their absence should be reflected in the price.

Condition issues and what can be fixed

Wicker and cane furniture has specific condition problems that most collectors need to learn.

Broken weaving strands are the most common damage and are almost always fixable by a specialist wicker restorer. Costs run from 50 to 200 pounds depending on the extent of damage and the complexity of the weave. Small repairs to a few strands can often be done invisibly by an experienced restorer using matching material.

Missing weaving, meaning gaps where whole sections of weave have come away, is more serious but still often repairable. The cost rises significantly, and the match between old and new material becomes harder to make invisible. Judge this by the price: if the piece is inexpensive enough to accept the restoration cost, buy it; if not, walk away.

Frame damage, meaning breaks or splits in the underlying wooden structure, is the deal-breaker. A piece with a broken frame is essentially unsound and repair is complex enough that it is rarely economic. Reject any piece with frame damage unless the price is decorative.

Sun bleaching is the third common issue. Wicker kept in strong sunlight for decades loses its colour and eventually loses its flexibility, becoming brittle. Bleached wicker is a value hit but not fatal; brittle wicker is fatal because it cannot be flexed for repair without further breakage.

Repainted wicker is a specific hazard. Victorian wicker was often painted originally, in cream, white, or green, but overpainting later in life is common and usually detrimental. Multiple layers of paint dull the weaving detail and add weight that stresses the structure. Original painted finish in good condition is desirable; three or four layers of later paint is a value destroyer.

Distinguishing genuine Victorian from later imports

This is the specific problem the category faces now, and it is worth spending time on. From about 1970 onwards, large quantities of Southeast Asian wicker were imported into Britain and Europe, and some of it is now old enough to look convincingly antique. The pieces I have seen mostly date from the 1970s and 1980s, and they are often confused with Victorian pieces at fairs and general sales.

The tells are usually in the frame construction and the material choice. Imported wicker used bent laminated bamboo or lightweight rattan for frames, rather than the solid hardwoods of Victorian British and American manufacture. The weaving material is usually a single type, often flat-cut rattan or occasionally paper cord treated to look like rattan. The patterns tend to be simple and repetitive.

Under the weaving, on the frame, imported pieces usually have machine-cut screws and modern fittings. There will rarely be any maker's label. There may be a country-of-origin stamp on the underside, though these are often removed.

The value difference is substantial. A genuine Victorian conservatory chair might sell for 250 to 500 pounds. A 1970s Asian import in similar apparent condition might be worth 40 to 80. Getting this wrong is the most expensive mistake in this category, and I have made it myself more than once.

The advice that undersells the category

The standard advice on Victorian wicker still treats it as a curiosity category rather than a serious collecting area. This is out of date. The market has moved and continues to move, driven partly by a return of interest in conservatory and porch furniture as garden rooms become more popular, and partly by the general rehabilitation of Victorian design in interior fashion.

Named-maker pieces in good original condition are now serious investments. Unnamed pieces in good original condition are still cheap, but they are cheap in the way that Staffordshire figures were cheap in 1990, which is to say a temporary condition of the market that experienced buyers are quietly correcting.

If you want to start collecting a category where prices are still catching up with quality, Victorian wicker is worth serious consideration. Start with labelled pieces from named makers, in original paint or unpainted, with intact castors and no frame damage. Buy the best you can afford and hold. For related reading, see period furniture joints and age, antique jardinieres and cachepots, and the Period Furniture category.