This side chair possesses many of the same features as B.69.23.1,.2; however, its well-articulated carving and scalloped front seat rail elevate it as a consummate New York expression of the Rococo. A nineteenth-century account purports that it belonged to Sir William Johnson, Britain’s superintendent of Indian affairs, who used it in his Mohawk Valley home. Despite Johnson’s close proximity to Albany, his papers reveal that for fine  furniture he had to look to New York City. Responding to Johnson’s 1770 inquiry for chairs, Thomas Shipboy of Albany replied, “as for good Chairs there is none Ready made in this pleace, but there is a man in town that make midling good ones.”

Technical notes: Mahogany; yellow-poplar (glue blocks), red oak (slip seat). The seat retains its original stuffing and fragments of a red moreen that is probably the original cover. The crest rail is a replacement. The banister is set into the shoe. The front corner blocks are quarter round and the back ones L-shaped. The seat rail is incised V, the slip seat, VII.

Related examples: Others from the set include Downs 1952, no. 149; Kane 1976, pp. 121–23, no. 102; Rodriguez Roque 1984, pp. 128–29, no. 55; the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts (acc. no. 31.15.12); and two that are privately owned. These chairs are also recorded in Frothingham 1892, p. 240; American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, sale 3804, January 2–4, 1930, lot 447, and sale 3940, January 9, 1932, lot 68; Keyes 1932, pp. 122–23; Susswein 1934, pp. 6–7; Samuel T. Freeman, Collection of the Late Charles M. Davenport, November 23, 1943, lot 248; Parke-Bernet, sale 529, February 11–12, 1944, lot 373; Antiques 45 (June 1944), p. 277; Sack 1950, p. 43; Winchester 1956, p. 439; Wright et al. 1966, pp. 308–9; Kirk 1972b, p. 120, no. 143; Butler 1973, pp. 67–69; Hummel 1976, p. 20; Cooper 1980, pp. 185, 188–89, no. 205; Blackburn 1983, pp. 430–31; Antiques 141 (June 1992), p. 898; Sack 1993, p. 50; Petraglia 1995, p. 82; Maine Antique Digest, February 1996, p. 11-D.

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.