Chippendale Carved Black Walnut Open Armchair

Object Details

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Chippendale Carved Walnut Open Armchair

Unknown
ca. 1755-1775

wood; black walnut; yellow-poplar; southern yellow pine

Object Essay

This boldly proportioned armchair is a more complete statement of the Chippendale style than the others examples in the Department’s Collection (see Acc. No. 72.6).^{1_{Winchester 1961, 470.}} The carving that ornaments the crest rail, splat, and knees is more fluid and spreads across joints and along edges. As John T. Kirk has pointed out, the advent of the Chippendale style in Philadelphia shifted emphasis from the silhouette of the chair to the splat.^{2_{Kirk 1972, 23.}} On this example, the carving has been designed to lead the eye upward along the stiles and down along the tassels into the pendant flower at the splat’s center.

Like many Philadelphia armchairs from this period, this chair was originally fitted with a commode frame, now lost. On a 1772 list of prices far cabinetwork, “Any Arm Chair maid for a Close Stool” cost an additional 3.s.; this walnut chair, with the additional options of a “Cut through bannester,” “Claw feet,” “Leaves on the knese,” and “fluted . . . Back,” would have cost a minimum of £3.3, making it the most expensive type of chair with a slip seat.^{3_{Weil, 182.}}

An almost identical armchair is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a number of closely related examples are known.^{4_{Heckscher 1985, no. 61. Heckscher lists related examples in his entry.}} The exaggerated scrolls on the crest rail and arms, the incised Vs on the knees, and the large size of the chairs in this group have suggested to some scholars an origin in Chester County, Pennsylvania, or in Maryland.^{5_{Ibid.; Downs 1952, nos. 37, 28, 123.}} Others have maintained that these chairs were made in Philadelphia, relating their formal, symmetrical carving to high-style English furniture of the second quarter of the 18th century.^{6_{Kindig, no. 39.}} The chair in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms is recorded as having descended in the Cooper family of Philadelphia, and at least one other chair of this type was owned in the city.^{7_{Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, Sale 3467, January 24–27, 1973, Lot 942; Antiques 77 (February 1970), inside front cover.}} These histories support an attribution to Philadelphia.

David L. Barquist

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.