Pair Chippendale Carved Mahogany Side Chairs

Object Details

Related Objects

Chippendale Mahogany Corner Chair

Unknown
ca. 1760-1775

wood; mahogany; eastern white pine; birch

Object Essay

Pierced banisters in the Gothic taste were evidently less popular among New England patrons than other chair-back designs with interlaced strapwork (see Acc. No. 72.18).^{1_{Acc. No. 67.64.1 is published in an advertisement, Antiques 91, no. 6 (June 1967), 696; and Fitz-Gerald 1969, 63. For a similar chair with a slip seat, see Fairbanks and Bates, 151.}} However, several sets of chairs in this same Gothic pattern, though differently constructed, have histories of ownership in the Boston area. A variant set that descended in the family of James Swan of Boston and Dorchester has even more overtly Gothic banisters with the lancet piercings, and yet their carved crest rails are closely related to those on this pair, confirming the interchangeability of components made from templates in the Gothic, Chinese, and modern styles popularized by Thomas Chippendale and others.^{2_{A Swan family chair at the Yale University Art Gallery is illustrated in Kane 1976, no. 111. The varied construction of Boston chairs in this popular Gothic pattern is discussed in Yehia, 210.}} As Morrison H. Heckscher has pointed out, the quatrefoil and triangular piercings at the base of this banister recall designs in Robert Manwaring’s Cabinet and Chair-maker’s Friend (London, 1765), first advertised by Boston booksellers in 1767.^{3_{Heckscher 1985, nos. 13, 17.}} Alternatively, the overall design also relates to many English chairs and may have been inspired by imported examples owned locally.^{4_{See Kirk 1982, figs. 899, 905.}}

Stylistic options among the surviving side, arm, and roundabout chairs in this pattern include cabriole legs with carved or uncarved knees, straight legs with open or solid knee brackets, chamfered rear legs with stretchers or square feet without them, and a loose seat or upholstery over straight or “commode” (serpentine) rails.^{5_{See Randall 1965, no. 150; Fales 1976, 60; Yehia, xiii and fig. 150: and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, Sale 3522, May 16, 18–19, 1973, Lot 417.}} A mahogany chair at Historic Deerfield with an uncarved banister and a simply molded crest rail represents the more modest alternative available from both urban and rural chairmakers.^{6_{Fales 1965, no. 104.}}

The acanthus carving on the knees and adjoining blocks on the Department of State’s chair (and its mate, 67.64.2) departs from the more common treatment of symmetrically veined leaves meeting at the angular ridge of the knee. Here, the carver has filled the upper portion of the knee with stippling reminiscent of another group of Boston chairs.^{7_{Beckerdite 1987, 134–35.}} Additional features that set this pair apart from other examples of the form are their serpentine, front seat rails and the addition of vase turnings at the ends of the medial stretchers.

Thomas S. Michie

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.