Six Queen Anne Carved Walnut Side Chairs

Object Details

Object Essay

Chairs with “compass bottoms”—so called because the pattern for the curvilinear seat rails was drawn with a compass—were first made in Philadelphia about 1730 and were based on contemporary English forms. Benno M. Forman advanced the theory that this type, with its arched crest rail and distinctive framed seat construction, derived from Continental models and was introduced to Philadelphia by German immigrants.^{1_{Forman 1983,167–70.}}

Northern European chairs are almost certainly the ultimate origin of the type, and the extensive use of small pins in the construction is characteristic of German craftsmanship. The path of transmission is difficult to recreate, however, since many of the design and construction features that Forman characterized as German are also found in contemporary Irish furniture, which had an equally strong influence in Philadelphia.^{2_{Kirk 1982, nos. 819–30.}}

The pierced splats on this chair (one of a set of six in the Department of State Collection) distinguish it from most surviving Philadelphia chairs in the Queen Anne style.^{3_{The full set is illustrated and discussed in Conger and Rollins, Treasures of State, cat. no. 8 (Acc. No. 72.110.1–.6).}} Pierced splats are uncommon on chairs without claw-and-ball feet, perhaps because these splats came into fashion at the same time as other features associated with the fully developed rococo style. Surviving Queen Anne-style Philadelphia chairs with pierced splats but without claw-and-ball feet are all similar, with trifid feet, volute and shell crest rails, and splats with like silhouettes.^{4_{An armchair with simple piercing is at Bayou Bend (Warren 1975, no. 48), and a side chair with identical piercing is at Williamsburg. Side chairs with more elaborate piercing are illustrated in an advertisement, H. & R. Sandor, Inc., Antiques 94, no. 2 (August 1968): 151, and in Sack Collection, 5: 1289.}} The pattern of the piercing on the Collection’s chair is the most elaborate in this group. The same pattern appears on later chairs from Philadelphia and also from Rhode Island and Massachusetts.^{5_{Kirk 1982, 259, nos. 890–92.}}

According to tradition, this chair and its mates were owned by Thomas Mifflin (1744–1800) of Philadelphia, who was born too late to have commissioned the set, although he may have inherited it from his family or that of his wife, Sarah Morris.^{6_{Gershenson 1967, 639.}}

David L. Barquist 

Excerpted from Jonathan L. Fairbanks. Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State. New York: Rizzoli, 2003.