---
title: "Wicker and rattan forms"
url: https://mainecottagefurniture.com/wicker-and-rattan-forms
description: "Three weave densities, drawn at the same scale, and what each does to a painted seat."
published: 2026-09-06
updated: 2026-09-06
---

# Wicker and rattan forms

Published 2026-09-06

FORM

PLATE 05

Three weave densities, drawn at the same scale, and what each does to a painted seat.

PLATE 05 / FORM / DRAWN FOR MAINE COTTAGE FURNITURE JOURNAL

Woven seating turns up in painted rooms more often than any other non-case form, and the three profiles drawn above cover most of what is found: an open weave, a close weave and a wrapped rail. The differences are structural before they are decorative.

## Open weave

An open weave leaves visible gaps between the elements. It is light, it dries quickly, and it takes paint badly: an open weave has an enormous surface area relative to its mass, so a colour coat either goes on thin and patchy or goes on heavy enough to start closing the gaps and stiffening the panel.

## Close weave

A close weave presents something much nearer to a continuous surface. It holds a colour coat evenly and reads as a solid block at any distance, which is why close-woven chairs are the ones most often found painted to match a room rather than left natural.

## Wrapped rails

Wrapping a frame member in cane or rush changes the way a joint reads: the wrap hides the junction entirely, so the frame appears to be continuous. Under paint the effect is stronger still, and a wrapped rail is one of the few places where a painted film genuinely conceals construction rather than merely covering it.

## Paint on woven work

- Expect a woven piece to take considerably more paint by volume than a solid piece of the same apparent size.
- Movement at the weave is normal; a rigid film over a flexible weave will craze along the lines of greatest movement, usually at the seat front.
- Where a weave has already been painted several times, further coats begin to fill the texture that made the piece worth having.