Chippendale Mahogany Ladder-Back Side Chair

Object Details

Object Essay

A late manifestation of the Chippendale style, the ladderback chair was introduced to the American colonies in the early 1770s. This is one of the earliest and most handsome of such chairs. Widely popular in America, particularly in the decade following the Revolution, many examples, including this one, have a Maryland provenance.

This chair has long been thought to be of Annapolis manufacture, and several characteristics—the details of the carving, the broad proportions, the saddle seat, and the type of molded leg—support the attribution.^{1_{Published in “Furniture from Brice House, Annapolis: Now in the Collection of Mrs. Breckinridge Long, at Laurel, Maryland,” Antiques 27, no. 1 (January 1935), 13; Baltimore 1947, no. 117; Comstock 1962, no. 283; Elder, no. 20; and Bartlett, 362–77.}} Since the original secondary woods are the most crucial evidence and are no longer extant, the possibility remains that the chair is English.^{2_{When the chair was reupholstered, probably in the 1960s, all the original seat rails were removed.}} Many comparable chairs were imported to Maryland in the years immediately before and after the Revolution and served as prototypes for extremely similar Maryland-made chairs.^{3_{See the example of the Paca family chair in Weidman 1984, no. 8.}} To cloud the issue further, most cabinetmakers working in Annapolis before the Revolution were from England, and several proudly noted their London training in their advertisements.

According to its history, the chair was used in the Brice House, one of the grandest of the mansions of Annapolis’s “Golden Age.” Built at extraordinary expense between 1768 and 1773 by Colonel James Brice (1764–1802), this immense five-part brick dwelling has been called the most magnificent colonial home in Annapolis. Colonel Brice’s account books record the acquisition of furniture for the house in the 1770s through the early 1780s, both from local craftsmen and abroad.^{4_{He purchased a few simple items, such as a crib, from the noted Annapolis cabinetmaker John Shaw. Shaw also completed repairs on Brice’s furniture. See James Brice ledger, M. 1207, 1767–1801, Maryland State Archives.}}

The donor’s mother, Mrs. Breckinridge Long (d. 1959), was one of the leading American antiques collectors of the early 20th century.^{5_{Newspaper accounts of her estate sale in 1959 describe the excitement caused by this extraordinary auction of 2,416 lots. Baltimore Sun (Baltimore), October 2, 1959.}} She actively acquired pieces, particularly in the Maryland area, for nearly fifty years. Mrs. Long acquired this chair and a number of other pieces from the Brice House before 1934.^{6_{The Brice House was then owned by St. John’s College. It is possible that the administration sold antiques collected to furnish the house and that these were bought by Mrs. Long. Photographs of the house in the 1890s, when it was owned by the Martin family, show none of the pieces Mrs. Long later acquired.}} The house had been sold out of the family in 1872, but several descendants of Colonel Brice still lived in the area.

Gregory R. Weidman

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.