It is rare that the work of an individual seventeenth-century chairmaking shop can be identified. In general, the turned members, triple spindles of the back, finials, and front post terminals of this small example conform to the norm of turned great chairs produced in Massachusetts in the late seventeenth-century and known today by the generic term Carver after a similar one traditionally owned by Governor John Carver (1575–1621) of the Plymouth Colony. However, the distinctive turnings of this example, in particular, the double flattened ball of the front post terminals, have been identified as hallmarks of one of a related group of Plymouth County craftsmen whose style is thought to have evolved in the shop of Ephraim Tinkham II.

Technical notes: Ash (posts, stretchers), white oak (rear seat rail), soft maple (middle vertical spindle); rush (replaced).

Related examples: St. George 1979, figs. 46, 47, 49; Sotheby's, New York, sale 5599, June 26, 1987, lot 200, a similar example but with turnings under the seat in the so-called Brew­ster style.

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.