Chippendale Carved Walnut Open Armchair

Object Details

Related Objects

Chippendale Carved Black Walnut Open Armchair

Unknown
ca. 1755-1775

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

Object Essay

This armchair is probably an early example of the Chippendale style in Philadelphia. Although it has the trapezoidal seal, straight stiles, and bow-shaped crest rail characteristic of the Chippendale style, the chair also exhibits a number of features found on Queen Anne-style chairs. The tall back, extensive use of small pins, discreetly placed shells and scrolls, and piercing constrained by the shape of the splat, all suggest an early date. The curved arms with scrolled ends and curved supports are a feature of the earlier style that continued to be used on a majority of Philadelphia armchairs made in the third quarter of the 18th century. An unusual detail on this chair is the construction of the arms, which are tenoned through the stiles and pinned in the same manner as the side seat rails.

Chairs with Chippendale-style features were first made in the 1750s. A set of six chairs similar to this one, “with Shell at the top front & Knee,” was purchased from John Elliott by Charles Norris in 1756.^{1 _{Hornor 1935, pl. 68; the bill of sale is reproduced in Helena Hayward, “The Elliotts of Philadelphia: Emphasis on the Looking Glass Trade, 1755–1810,” master’s thesis (University of Delaware, 1971), fig. 1.}} Benno M. Forman attributed a less expensive, turned Philadelphia armchair with a similar marriage of stylistic features to Solomon Fussell, who apparently ceased making chairs sometime after 1750; Forman dated related chairs by William Savery to the decade of 1750–1760.^{2_{Forman 1980, 55, 58–59.}}

This chair appears to be identical to one published by F. Lewis Hinckley in 1953, which had a shaped drop applied below the front seat rail as backing for a missing carved scallop shell.^{3_{Hinckley, no. 889. I am grateful to Robert Mussey for this reference.}} Both the shell and its supporting blocks were lost on the chair acquired by the Department of State and were restored based on the glue evidence on the seat rail and related chairs.^{4_{Chairs with symmetrical scallop shells on their crest and front seat rails are at Chipstone (Rodriguez Roque, no. 77), Bayou Bend (Warren 1975, no. 81), the Yale University Art Gallery (Kane 1976, no. 112), the Dietrich American Foundation (Rollins, 1106), and an example once owned by Israel Sack, Inc., (Sack Collection, 3:747). The shell was restored by Robert Ferencsik at the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities Conservation Lab.}} The “II” marked on the chair in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms indicates that it was made as one of a pair or part of a larger set. The chair illustrated by Hinckley may be either this one or a mate.

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.