Side Chair

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Side Chair
Datec. 1755–1800
Made inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumMahogany; southern yellow pine, Atlantic white cedar, and yellow-poplar
Dimensions38 3/4 × 23 1/2 × 22 in. (98.4 × 59.7 × 55.9 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.69.80
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Although an exact prototype for this chair has not been identified, certain motifs are related to designs by both Thomas Chippendale and Robert Manwaring. The asymmetrical ruffle of the seat rail bears comparison with labeled chairs by James Gillingham (1736–1781), Thomas Tufft (d. 1788), and Benjamin Randolph (1721–1791).  Attempts to link the Bayou Bend chair to a documented example underscore a natural propensity to ascribe objects to a craftsman, while challenging the logic of basing an attribution on a singular motif.

 

Technical notes: Mahogany; southern yellow pine (slip seat, interior rear seat rail), Atlantic white cedar (front corner blocks), yellow-poplar (rear corner blocks). The seat rails are tenoned through the stiles. The front corner blocks are two-part quarter round, while the rear blocks are single quarter round. The frame retains its eighteenth-century webbing and stuffing. The front seat rail bears the stamped letters CC, the slip seat, C.

 

Related examples: Antiques 15 (June 1929), p. 468; Antiques 32 (August 1937), p. 51; Comstock 1953, p. 474; Antiques 83 (March 1963), p. 259; Antiques 93 (June 1968), p. 685; Davis 1972, p. 197, no. 8; Antiques 106 (December 1974), p. 905; Antiques (November 1976), p. 837; Sotheby’s, New York, sale 5682, January 30, 1988, lot 1775.


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, 1988.


ProvenanceRichard A. Loeb, New Jersey, by 1947; [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, 1947]; [David Stockwell (1907–1996), Philadelphia, by 1953]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1953; given to MFAH, prior to 1969.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
Stamped on front seat rail: CC
Stamped on slip seat: C

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Side Chair (one of a pair)
c. 1755–1800
Mahogany; yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, and Atlantic white cedar
B.69.77.1
Side Chair (one of a pair)
c. 1755–1800
Mahogany; yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, and Atlantic white cedar
B.69.77.2
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c. 1760–1800
Mahogany; mahogany, Atlantic white cedar, cedar, southern yellow pine, and yellow-poplar
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c. 1760–1800
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c. 1760–1800
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scan from file photograph
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c. 1740–1800
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c. 1756–1776
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Side Chair (one of a pair)
c. 1760–1800
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B.58.146.2
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c. 1730–1800
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Eight-day Clock
Peter Stretch
c. 1730–1740
Black walnut; southern yellow pine, eastern white pine, and Atlantic white cedar
B.86.4
scan from file photograph
c. 1730–1800
Black walnut; yellow-poplar, red oak, Atlantic white cedar, chestnut, eastern white pine, and black walnut
B.61.82