- Side Chair
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Although derived from the same Sheraton design as the previous example (B.64.9.1–.4), these chairs exhibit a number of subtle differences. When commissioning a piece of furniture, a client could request certain options, such as hollowed rather than reeded legs, which would affect the final price, as well as ornamental variations to suit individual taste. On the present examples, carved leaves were substituted for the plumes topping the urn. The most prominent variation is the banister’s incorporation of a fourth vertical member, a more literal translation of the published design.
Technical notes: Mahogany; eastern white pine (corner blocks), ash (front and side seat rails, side chairs’ rear seat rails), red oak (armchairs’ rear seat rails), sweetgum (armchairs’ medial braces), black cherry (side chairs’ medial braces). Each chair has two medial braces, with construction following that of B.64.9.1–.4. The blocks are quarter round, two part in the front and a single block in the back.
Related examples: Another example in an institutional collection is Scherer 1988, p. 16.
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, 1998.
ProvenanceBy tradition, Emily Phyfe Dunham [1]; by descent, Anna L. Scott, by July 31, 1959; [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, July 31, 1959–March 16, 1960]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1960; given to MFAH, by 1966.
[1] A great-niece of the New York cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe, was a minimum of two generations younger than Phyfe, and could not have been their original owner, which brings into question the attribution.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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