Armchair

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Armchair
Datec. 1700–1725
Probable placeBoston area, Massachusetts, United States
MediumSoft maple, ash, poplar, and hickory
Dimensions47 5/8 × 23 7/8 × 22 1/2 in. (121 × 60.6 × 57.2 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.69.54
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Pine Room
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Painted banister-back chairs offered an inexpensive alternative to the leather-upholstered chairs made in Boston. The application of a black painted finish made it possible to combine four inexpensive woods. This armchair and accompanying side chair represent survivals of a larger group and are indicative of the large sets of matching seating furniture that be­came common in the Early Baroque pe­riod. Less common is the design of the crest, which is more solid than the norm. The Baroque arched and scrolled ele­ments echo the design of contemporary gravestones, while the central vertical detail relates to the cresting of a small group of early upholstered easy chairs. Double-ball feet, like those on the arm­chair, occur occasionally in eastern Massa­chusetts. The simple columnar design used for the turned arm supports, stiles, and banisters and a history of ownership on the frontier west of Boston suggest the possibility of rural rather than urban manufacture.

Technical notes: B.69.54, soft maple (crest rail, left front leg, arms, stretchers, right seat rail), ash (front seat rail, right banister), poplar (left rear post), hickory (rear stretcher); B.69.55, poplar (crest rail, left rear post), ash (left stretcher, left banister), soft maple (front and rear stretcher, front seat rail); center two split banisters and left seat rail are replace­ments; both stiles are broken above urn on block.

Related examples: A third chair of the set that descended in the Williams family, private collection, Portland, Oregon; Historic Deer­field (Fales 1976, p. 29, no. 35); private collec­tion, Mendenhall, Pennsylvania; PMA (acc. no. 73–259–3).

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.


ProvenanceBy tradition owned by John Bigelow (1674–1769) and his wife, Jerusha Garfield Bigelow (1677–1758), who were married in 1696 in Waterfield, Massachusetts, and later settled in Marlborough, Massachusetts; inherited by their son Gershom Bigelow (d. 1812); inherited by his son Timothy Bigelow (d. 1817); inherited by his son Ephraim Bigelow (d. 1843); inherited by his sister Lovinia Bigelow; inherited by her daughter; inherited by her son William Williams by 1883; inherited by his granddaughter Mildred E. McCurdy by 1940; [Lillian Blankley Cogan, Farmington, Connecticut]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1954; given to MFAH, 1969.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Armchair
c. 1765–1770
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, ash, and hickory
B.69.413
Armchair
c. 1700–1730
Soft maple, ash, and poplar
B.58.106
Armchair
c. 1770–1785
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, red oak, and hickory (both handholds are replacements made of ash)
B.79.204
Armchair
Francis Trumble
c. 1760–1770
Yellow-poplar, ash, white oak, soft maple, and hickory (right stretcher is a replacement made of beech)
B.64.31
Armchair
c. 1790–1800
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, and hickory
B.69.434
Armchair
c. 1700–1725
Soft maple; hard maple, birch, ash, poplar, aspen poplar or cottonwood
B.69.44
Armchair
c. 1790–1805
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, and hickory
B.69.435
Armchair
c. 1795–1815
Soft maple, oak, hickory, and yellow-poplar
B.79.205
Armchair
c. 1765–1775
Soft maple, white oak, hickory, and yellow-poplar
B.69.424
scan from file photograph
c. 1775–1785
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, and hickory
B.72.26
Armchair
c. 1790–1810
Yellow-poplar, soft maple, and hickory
B.69.415
Side Chair
c. 1700–1725
Poplar, ash, and soft maple
B.69.55