One reliable form of identifying regional preferences during the Neoclassical period is through chair backs. This particular pattern, derived from Thomas Sheraton’s Drawing-Book, must have been among the most popular in New York, judging by the number of known examples. Within nine years of Sheraton’s publication, the design appeared in the 1802 price book as “A Square Back Chair, No. IV.” It defines the basic model, such as Bayou Bend’s, as composed of “A drapery bannister, with a feather top; a splatt on each side, to form an arch with the top rail; bannister and splatts pierc’d; sweep stay and top rail, with a break in ditto; sweep seat rails, for stuffing over ditto; plain taper’d legs.”

Technical notes: Mahogany; ash (seat rails), eastern white pine (corner blocks), black cherry (medial braces). The back is composed of a crest rail, a stay rail, and three vertical splats. The seat frame is assembled with two medial braces and rounded corner blocks. Slight variations between the chairs may reflect the work of several craftsmen within the same shop, or from more than one establishment, or that the group is assembled of chairs from more than one set.

Related examples: New York chairs include Hipkiss 1941, pp. 170–71, no. 107; Miller 1956, pp. 57–58, no. 87, Rice 1962, p. 46; Randall 1965, pp. 214–16, no. 175; Montgomery 1966b, pp. 110–12, nos. 58, 60; White House 1975, pp. 122, 125, 146–47; Bishop 1972, p. 228, no. 327; Fales 1976, p. 77, no. 141; Kane 1976, pp. 167–68, no. 146; Butler 1983, p. 59, no. 51. Chairs documented to the shop of Norfolk, Virginia, cabinetmaker James Woodward (d. 1839) incorporate the same pattern and suggest the range of its popularity (Venable 1989, pp. 74–77, no. 35) and to the Troy partnership of Graff and Hayden at the PMA (acc. no. 1995.80.1).

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.