Easy Chair

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Easy Chair
Datec. 1730–1775
Probable placeMassachusetts, United States
Probable placeRhode Island, United States
MediumSoft maple; soft maple, eastern white pine, and elm.
Dimensions48 1/4 × 33 3/4 × 26 1/4 in. (123.2 × 85.7 × 66.7 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.60.90
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Chippendale Bedroom
On view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Compared with the previous example (B.69.252), this easy chair’s precise origin is more open to debate, as it exhibits characteristics of both Boston and Newport furniture. During the eighteenth century, the principal expense in producing an easy chair was the upholsterer’s materials and labor rather than the bare frame. While charges varied, depending on the frame’s complexity and the materials selected, it is estimated that the labor on a typical easy chair was 20 percent of its total expense, the wooden frame 25 percent, and its webbing, stuffing, and cover 55 percent.

Technical notes: Soft maple; soft maple (seat rails, arm supports), eastern white pine (arm scrolls), elm (arm stiles). The easy chair’s construction follows the standard eighteenth-century New England practice (see B.69.252), except that the front legs are secured with a square tenon rather than being dovetailed in. The legs are covered with an intractable over-paint. In 1992 a spurious pencil inscription, “Gostelowe, Jonathan March 10, 1750,” was uncovered on an interior vertical support.

Related examples: Forman 1988, p.366.

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[John S. Walton, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, November 10, 1960; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Exhibition History.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscription on interior vertical support: Gostelowe, Jonathan March 10, 1750 [pencil; uncovered in 1992]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

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scan from file photograph
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scan from file photograph
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1800
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