This easy chair should be recognized as among the earliest and most accomplished Late Baroque interpretations. It discreetly varies from earlier examples (see B.58.104), retaining the tripartite medial stretcher and C-scrolled arms while updating the brush feet, turned legs, and shaped skirt with pad feet, cabriole legs, and a rounded front seat rail.  Traditionally, this chair has been assigned to Newport, an attribution largely based on the presence of the lambrequins and beading that outline the contour of the legs; however, this treatment is more closely identified with Boston furniture.

Technical notes: Black walnut (front legs, front stretcher), soft maple (rear legs, rear stretcher); soft maple (front and side seat rails, wing crests), hard maple (rear seat rail), beech (crest rail), sylvestris pine (rail’s arm support). The easy chair’s construction follows the standard eighteenth-century New England practice. The medial and rear stretchers are mortised and tenoned. The front legs are dovetailed into the seat rail. The rear legs and stiles are integral. An unusual aspect of this chair’s construction is that the arms are constructed with a split-yoke design. The pad feet are restored. The frame retains fragments of its original green worsted cover.

Related examples: Sack 1969–92, vol.3, p. 618, no. 1401; Antiques 117 (June 1980), p. 1151; Antiques 145 (May 1994), p. 653.

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.