This type of chair, with turned banisters for back slats, represented an easily pro­duced, less expensive variant on leather and cane-backed chairs. Often made in sets, these chairs were widely produced over a long period of time throughout New England.

Technical notes: B.69.46, painted poplar (legs), soft maple (crest rail), black ash (front stretcher, left seat rail, banisters, stay rail), elm (left stretcher), white oak (front seat rail); B.69.47, various woods, materials not ana­lyzed microscopically.

Related examples: MMA (acc. nos. 10.125.218; 52.195.8, .9); Concord Museum, Massachusetts (Wood 1996, p. 63, no. 26); Jobe et al. 1991, pp. 70, 72, fig. 21.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.