The most discernible of the subtle differences between this side chair and the previous example (B.69.66) is the handling of the knee brackets, here terminating in a simple ruffle, a presage of the Rococo.

Technical notes: Black walnut; southern yellow pine (slip seat). For the most part this chair was assembled using the standard Philadelphia formula (see B.69.69). The seat rails and rim are constructed of solid walnut and the rear seat brackets are applied rather than cut out of the solid. The seat framing is not square, as the sides flare outward. The inside front and rear seat rails, as well as the slip seat, are incised IV. A label attached to the seat reads: “This chair belonged to Aunt Shoemaker,’ a great Aunt of Grand Mother H. Williams. It is probably 150 years old April 8, 1892.”

Related examples: Heckscher 1985, pp. 86–87, no. 42, records another chair from this set. A similar example is in Rodriguez Roque 1984, pp. 114–15, no. 48.

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.