Armchair

This banister-back armchair represents a type that was produced throughout New England (see B.68.3) over a long period. Combining elements of both the Early and Late Baroque styles, with its earlier turned legs and stretchers and later yoke crest and vase-shaped banister, this type of chair is ultimately derived from the leather-bottomed and caned chairs produced in Boston in the 1730s (see B.61.40). When a less expensive bottom was desired, or in rural areas that had no upholsterers, the rush bottom was substituted. The extremely slender banister or splat signals a chair of Connecticut origin. The double vase-turned side stretchers are unusual.

Technical notes: Soft: maple, ash (stretchers); rush (replaced). The front feet are replacements.

Related examples: A set of one armchair and four side chairs at MMA (Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. III); advertisement of Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Blum (Antiques 107 [June 1975]: p. 1026); Mabel Brady Garvan Collection (Kane 1976, pp. 93–6); Concord Museum, Massachusetts (Wood 1996, p. 73, no. 31). A more sophisticated slip-seated, cabriole-leg example is at Chipstone (Rodriguez Roque 1984, no. 76). A set of seven side chairs and one armchair was advertised by John S. Walton (Antiques 125 [May 1984], p. 926).

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.