Flat, curvilinear stretchers such as these have long been associated with Newport furniture. More distinctive and unusual is the hooped shoulder joining the stiles and crest rail, a detail patterned after English chairs. On the basis of these elements, along with the publication of a set purportedly made by Job Townsend for the Eddy family, chairs of this type were routinely assigned to Newport, many of them attributed to Townsend. The documentation for these chairs has never been substantiated, and scholarship has established a Boston origin.

Technical notes: Black walnut; soft maple (slip seat). The construction is typical of New England chairs from this period (see B.57.75). The crest rail is joined to the stiles at the top of the ear rather than near the shoulder. The front seat rail and slip seat are incised IIIII.

Related examples: Chairs with shaped front seat rails include Greenlaw 1974, pp. 60–61, no. 52; Sack 1969–92, vol. 2, p. 363, no. 914; vol. 4, p. 1015, no. P3838; vol. 6, p. 1650, no. P4768; Antiques 147 (May 1995), p. 642. Unpublished examples belong to the Art Institute of Chicago (acc. no. 1970-102); and The Denver Art Museum (acc. no. 1979.62). Similar chairs with plain seat rails are American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, sale 3804, January 2–4,1930, lot 492; Carpenter 1954, p. 39, no. 13; Ott 1965, pp. 4–5, no. 4; Hummel 1970–71, pt. 2, pp. 902–4; Sack 1969–92, vol. 8, p. 2354, no. P5887; Antiques 131 (January 1987), p. 45; an unpublished example belongs to the Newport Historical Society.

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.