In 1757 George Washington received a shipment of English furniture that included “A Mahagoney easy Chair—on Casters coverd with ditto [yellow silk and worsted damask] and a Check Case.” In addition to a fine upholstery fabric, easy chairs typically had a durable slipcover that could be easily removed and cleaned. The Bayou Bend example’s loose-fitting reproduction cover suggests this practice.  This fine easy chair is also distinguished by its shell-carved knees.

Technical notes: Soft maple; birch (top of the wings), soft maple. The construction follows the standard eighteenth-century New England practice (see B.69.252).

Related examples: Downs 1952, no. 80. The Bayou Bend chair’s carved knees bear comparison with the carving on a high chest attributed to the cabinetmaker Grindal Rawson (1719–1803) of Providence (Monahon 1980, p. 134).

Book excerpt: Warren, David B., 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.