- Armchair
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The low-back Windsor armchair, an English form derived from the corner chair, first appeared in Philadelphia around the mid-eighteenth century, and that city produced the majority of low-back Windsors as well. These chairs, which relate to the high-backs in overall design, are made with a back rail that overlaps the ends of the arms, adding strength. This crisply turned example has the typical early Philadelphia form of leg and its ball-shaped foot, but the gently swelling stretcher is indicative of a slightly later design. The thick arms with rounded upper edges, an unusual feature, are also seen on a sophisticated cabriole-legged, high-back example.
Technical notes: Yellow-poplar (seat), ash (legs, arm supports, spindles), white oak (arm crest), soft maple (stretchers, spindles), hickory (spindles). The right stretcher is a replacement made of beech.
Related examples: Evans 1996, p. 87, fig. 3–14; Santore 1981, p. 79, no. 61.
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.
Provenance[Ginsburg & Levy, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, October 21, 1964; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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