Once we received our commission and got the material assignment and budget, we began the design process. Because time was short, we decided to do a variant on our design for a 'scholar's bench.' The basic design is quite rugged and, having made several similar pieces, we knew that we could produce them using the tools that we had at hand.
A slab stool is called so because most of its components are made of slabs of wood. In our case, we used three large slabs: one for the stool seat, and one for each leg. After the dry assembly, we concluded that the stool looked overly "butch," and that the Queen and Princess were more deserving of something lighter and more airy. Accordingly, we rip-cut the shoulders off of the front panels and turned them into stretchers. This gave us a piece far more etheral.
Benches and stools designed using slab construction can be documented from at least the early 1000's up through the end of the 20th century. Examples of these types of benches can be found in most books on historical furniture, but in particular, Ball and Campbell's Master Pieces (p. 10). Illustrations of these can be found in Vincenzo Foppa's Young Ciciero Reading (c. 1460) and Ambrogio Borgognone's Madonna and Child. Additional examples can be found in Percy Macquoid's A History of English Furniture: Volume One, The Age of Oak, 1500-1660 ( pp 70 - 71). Oak Furniture, the British Tradition: A History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England, by Victor Chinnery, has examples on pp 108, 260 - 262. Finally, three examples of benches of this type with similar stretchers can be found at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's Cloisters Annex in the Campin room off of the Boppard room.