Chippendale Carved Mahogany Upholstered Easy Chair

Object Details

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Chippendale Carved Mahogany Easy Chair

Unknown
ca. 1760-1775

wood; mahogany; white oak; red oak; maple; eastern white pine

Object Essay

The great majority of easy chairs made in colonial America reflected the early Georgian English form, with a high back, generous serpentine wings, and cabriole legs (see Acc. No. 72.108). Late in the colonial period, a few adaptations were made to update the design based on English models. This can be seen in an easy chair descended from Samuel Verplanck (1739–1820) of New York City, with its straight front rail, single-scroll arms derived from Chippendale-style sofas, and armrests attached to the rear stiles.^{1_{Hechscher 1985, no. 75; another is illustrated in an advertisement, Antiques 79 (January 1961), 1.}} The proportions were also adjusted to Chippendale taste by reducing the height of the back. There are similar examples from Philadelphia: one is owned by Winterthur and the other descended in the Hazard family of Rhode Island.^{2_{Downs 1952, no. 86; Sack Collection, 5:1208–9.}} Nutting illustrates another type from eastern Massachusetts with late 18th-century pad feet.^{3_{Nutting 1928, no. 2050.}}

This example incorporates these changes and has an upholstered frame that duplicates the form, dimensions, and square proportions of Chippendale taste. The wings flare in a dramatic S-curve, a motif seen in the “Saddle Cheek Chair” in George Hepplewhite’s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide of 1788. English easy chairs had adopted straight Marlborough legs by the 1760s, and the combination of flaring serpentine wings and straight legs was made in America as well, becoming particularly popular throughout the United States in the post-Revolutionary period. The Collection’s chair, however, retains the conservative preference for early Georgian cabriole legs with acanthus-leaf carving on the knees and ball and claw feet.

At least one other New York easy chair combines a colonial New York Chippendale form with the flaring wings popular during the Federal period. Its wings have a pronounced curve also carried over to the rear stiles while the rear feet end in diminutive pads.^{4_{Advertisement, Antiques 84 (September 1963), 218; Nutting 1928, no. 2063, illustrates a Chippendale easy chair with flaring wings from the Boston area.}} Both this and the Collection’s chair appear to be from different shops, but they illustrate the close relationship between New York and English furniture design. The chairs could well predate Hepplewhite’s Guide, deriving their form from imported English furniture or from the knowledge of English-trained craftsmen. If so, the cabriole legs can be attributed to local conservative taste and the very up-to-date upholstered shape to English influence, the two resulting in a form that typified colonial preferences.

Gilbert T. Vincent

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.