John Henry Belter
Side Chair

MakerAmerican, born Germany, 1804–1865
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Side Chair
  • Part of a Parlor Set
Date1855
Made inNew York , New York, United States
MediumRosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
Dimensions38 × 18 1/4 × 25in. (96.5 × 46.4 × 63.5cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of the estate of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.81.9.8
Non exposé

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Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the fashionable American parlor was furnished en suite with a large parlor set, such as this example. The furniture arrangement was anchored by a center table placed in the middle of the room. The étagère, a new furniture form, provided a means to exhibit precious items that revealed the family’s taste and interests. What today is called the Rococo Revival, often referred to as the French taste, was considered the appropriate style for the parlor. Cabriole legs and floral and scrolled ornament of the eighteenth-century Rococo were adopted and reinterpreted in the new style. The furniture of John Henry Belter is interesting in the history and development of furniture making in that it combines both the handwork traditions of the past and the use of lamination and steam pressure that look to the future. Belter, one of the hundreds of immigrant Germans working in the New York furniture trade at the mid-nineteenth century, attained fame in his time as the inventor of a patented process by which laminated layers of wood, under steam pressure, could be shaped in molds to provide strong, curving backs for his intricately carved and pierced Rococo Revival-style furniture. Indeed, the name Belter became synonymous with this style of mid-nineteenth-century parlor and bedroom furniture. While several individual documented pieces from Belter’s prolific factory survive, this set is unique in that it is still together with its original bill of sale. It shows that Elizabeth Taylor Sanford Jordan of Milledgeville, Georgia, purchased the set for about $1,300 in 1855. She was married to Green Hill Jordan. Sadly, she did not have much time to enjoy the set, as she died three years later. Her brother-in-law, Benjamin, bought a very similar set for his family. He had married Emily, a sister of Elizabeth, and, according to family tradition, the two households had furnished their homes almost identically. The two parlor sets were originally upholstered in brocade—blue-green for the Green Jordan set and pink-red for the Emily and Benjamin Jordan set.

Technical notes: B.81.9.9: Rosewood, rosewood veneer; ash (comer block), black walnut (rail under corner top); B.81.9.10: Rosewood, rosewood veneer; black walnut (right panel of mirror back), mahogany (horizontal board of bottom shelf), eastern white pine (base backboard), yellow-poplar (panel over left back side), and an undetermined exotic wood, possibly eucalyptus (inner stile of right back panel frame, rear horizontal rail at bottom of upper assembly).

Related examples: Belter called this furniture “Arabasket.” Whether that term refers solely to this pattern or, as has been suggested, was used to describe all pierced, carved furniture is not entirely clear (see Tracy et al. 1970, no. 126). Other examples in this pattern are in Schwartz, Stanek, and True 1981: an armchair, p. 47, no. 12; a sofa, p. 63, no. 37; and a parlor set with busts on the crest rail, relating in concept to the busts on the skirt of the center table, p. 49.

Adapted from 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.




ProvenanceJohn Henry Belter and Company, New York City, 1855; purchased by Benjamin Smith Jordan (1793–1856) acting as agent for Elizabeth Taylor Sanford Jordan (Mrs. Green Hill Jordan, 1796–1858); inherited by her daughter Martha Goodwin Sanford Jordan Gardner (1827–1913); inherited by her daughter Martha Jordan Gardner Denny (1867–1904); inherited by her daughter Martha Goodwin Denny Galphin (1901–1963); inherited by her daughter Martha Goodwin Galphin (b. 1932), New York City; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1973; given to the Governor’s Mansion, Austin, 1974; transferred to Bayou Bend Collection, MFAH, 1981.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Side Chair
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.5
Side Chair
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.6
Side Chair
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.7
Sofa
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.1
Sofa
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.2
Armchair
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.3
Armchair
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash and black walnut
B.81.9.4
Center Table
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash, black walnut, and marble
B.81.9.9
Étagère
John Henry Belter
1855
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; black walnut, mahogany, eastern white pine, yellow-poplar, undetermined exotic wood (possibly eucalyptus), marble, and mirrored glass
B.81.9.10
Étagerè
John Henry Belter
c. 1850–1860
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash, marble, and mirror glass
B.71.41
Meridienne or Couch
John Henry Belter
c. 1850–1860
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash
B.71.57
Side Chair
c. 1850–1860
Rosewood and rosewood veneer; ash
B.82.5.3