Always an active port, by the Revolutionary period Salem enjoyed an unprecedented prosperity as a result of privateering and the blockade of Boston harbor. These factors contributed to the town’s ranking in the 1790 census as the young nation’s sixth in terms of population; it also boasted the highest per capita income. One of its merchants, Elias Hasket Derby, inaugurated New England’s extensive and lucrative trade with China, as well as trading with Siam, Mauritius, Arabia, Madeira, and parts of Europe. No one benefited more from these mercantile successes than this savvy entrepreneur, who became America’s first millionaire. The ultimate conspicuous consumer, Derby remodeled or built no less than four residences, culminating in the ambitious mansion begun in 1795 from Charles Bulfinch’s designs and completed four years later under Samuel Mclntire’s direction. The magnificent furniture commissioned for these houses represents a wealth of the most sumptuous expressions of American Neoclassicism.

The design of these chairs is literally translated from George Hepplewhite’s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide. The finished chair surpasses the published plate, incorporating carved grape clusters into the splat, lunette, and suspended from the bowknots at the top of each leg, trailing downward to terminate in ebony spade feet. Traditionally, this carving has been ascribed to Samuel Mclntire; however, in the absence of any documented furniture carving this association is suspect if based solely on the stylistic similarity between the motifs on Salem-owned furniture and the architectural detail of Mclntire’s houses.

Between 1784 and 1798, Samuel Mclntire billed Elias Hasket Derby for a range of activities, everything from “mending garden fence” to carving furniture. This collaboration between craftsman and client has long formed the basis for ascribing these chairs and much of the Derby’s furniture to Mclntire’s hand; however, an attribution to other craftsmen, specifically those working in the Boston area, merits serious investigation. The Derby accounts and documented furniture hint at this possibility, specifying that many of Elias Hasket Derby’s important commissions were carried out by Boston craftsmen, such as the cabinetmakers John Cogswell (1738–1818) and Stephen Badlam (1751–1815) and the carvers John (1746–1800) and Simeon Skillin, Jr. (1757–1806), as well as their apprentice John Richardson.

Technical notes: Mahogany, ebony (feet); eastern white pine (corner blocks), ash (front and side seat rails), soft maple (rear seat rail). The chairbacks are composed of twelve elements: the crest rail, the three vertical splats, and the four separate segments of the swags between the splats, the stiles, and the two-part stay rail. The corners have large, triangular blocks. The nonintrusive upholstery reproduces the original tacking scheme.

Related examples: Originally a set of eight chairs, the Bayou Bend pair descended with one recorded in Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. 139. The others are Hipkiss 1941, pp. 154–55, no. 91; Randall 1965, pp. 203, 205, 207, no. 165; Montgomery 1966b, pp. 75–77, no. 14; Flanigan 1986, pp. 106–7, no. 34; Sack 1993, p. 58. In addition, these chairs, excluding the Bayou Bend examples, have been published in Kimball 1930–31, part 3, p. 30; Karolik 1947, pp. 47–49, nos. VI, VII; Sack 1950, p. 53; Comstock 1962, no. 426; Tracy et al. 1976, no. 35; Kirk 1982, p. 287, no. 1060; Heckscher 1994, p. 198. Later generations of the Derby family commissioned copies, some by the twentieth-century Boston cabinetmaker Isidor Braverman (Parke-Bernet, New York, sale 1181, October 7, 1950, lot 132; Ward 1977, p. 76, no. 98). Two other groups of chairs based on this design are Hipkiss 1941, pp. 154–55, no. 90; Randall 1965, pp. 203–4, no. 164; Bishop 1972, p. 242, no. 357; Naeve 1978, pp. 20–21, no. 24; and Fales 1965, no. 61; Levy Gallery 1988b, p. 160; Northeast Auctions, November 5, 1995, lot 425.

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.