Side Chair

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Side Chair
Datec. 1735–1795
Made inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumBlack walnut; black walnut and southern yellow pine
Dimensions42 1/4 × 19 3/4 × 20 1/2 in. (107.3 × 50.2 × 52.1 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.69.66
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Queen Anne Sitting Room
On view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty pronounces the S curve as the “line of beauty,” its undulating line conveying pleasure to the eye: “How inelegant would the shapes of all our moveables be without it?” This superb side chair, along with another chair (B.69.65), elegantly illustrates Hogarth’s observation and concurrently manifests the fully developed interpretation of the Late Baroque in Philadelphia seating furniture. Here, in this rhythmic flow of curves, the craftsman has further accentuated the chair’s contours by fully rounding its stiles and integrating them into the crest rail. The pair of scrolled volutes that frame the crest’s scalloped shell repeats the graceful S shape and crowns the overall effect.


Technical notes: Black walnut; black walnut (slip seat front and sides), southern yellow pine (slip seat back). The rear leg terminals are unconventional for Philadelphia seat furniture. The seat rim is cut directly from the rails rather than applied. The upper portion of the shoe is replaced. The rear seat rail is incised I.


Related examples: Antiques 79 (March 1961), p. 229; Kindig 1978, no. 24; Monkhouse and Michie 1986, p. 165, no. 106. See also B.69.65.


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.



Provenance[David Stockwell (1907–1996), Philadelphia]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1953; given to MFAH, prior to 1969.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
Rear seat rail incised: I

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Armchair
c. 1750–1790
Black walnut; southern yellow pine
B.69.249
Side Chair
c. 1745–1795
Black walnut; southern yellow pine
B.69.65
Side Chair
c. 1735–1795
Black walnut; black walnut and southern yellow pine
B.69.246
scan from file photograph
c. 1730–1775
Black walnut; black walnut and southern yellow pine
B.69.407.2
scan from file photograph
c. 1730–1775
Black walnut; black walnut and southern yellow pine
B.69.407.1
Side Chair
c. 1730–1775
Black walnut; black walnut and southern yellow pine
B.69.69
scan from file photograph
c. 1760–1800
Black walnut; red gum, Atlantic white cedar, yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, and eastern white pine
B.69.527
c. 1740–1800
Black walnut; southern yellow pine, Atlantic white cedar, yellow-poplar, and spruce
B.66.15
scan from file photograph
c. 1800–1820
Black walnut, southern yellow pine
B.71.22
Desk on Chest
c. 1860–1890
Black walnut and basswood; southern yellow pine
B.62.48
Armchair
c. 1760–1790
Black walnut; southern yellow pine
B.69.18
Table
c. 1720–1730
Black walnut; southern yellow pine
B.71.8