Great Chair

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Great Chair
Datec. 1660–1700
Possible placeMassachusetts, United States
Possible placeBoston, Massachusetts, United States
MediumAsh
Dimensions44 1/2 × 22 1/8 × 18 in. (113 × 56.2 × 45.7 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.69.520
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

The slat-back example represents a vari­ant contemporaneous with the spindle-back great chair. The straight slats with concave upper corners and crisply turned urn-and-flame finials relate the chair at Bayou Bend to a group associated with the North Shore of Massachusetts, though most likely to originate in Salem. While the other examples feature flat blade arms that echo the design of the slats, the turned arms here are apparently original.

Related examples: A very similar example at the Milwaukee Art Museum (Jobe et al. 1991 p. 29, no. 1); Baltimore Museum of Art (Elder and Stokes 1987, no. 1); Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts (Clunie, Farnham, and Trent 1980, no. 3); Fales 1976, p. 20, no. 11.

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.


ProvenanceR. B. Hanon; purchased by [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, December 2, 1963]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1963; given to MFAH, prior to 1969.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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c. 1700–1725
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c. 1810–1820
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Mahogany and holly; ash
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Mahogany, ash, and maple
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c. 1785–1820
Mahogany and holly; ash
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