Armchair

BFA Number

DAPC_2018-0029

Date

1735-1745

Current Owner

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
More details

Details

Description

Armchair with design elements associated with William and Mary and Queen Anne styles. The yoke-shaped crest has hoop shoulders. The curved rear stiles have flat front surfaces, chamfered rear edges, and gradually widen from the shoulders to the seat rail. A curved, solid rectangular splat is veneered on the front surface with two vertical pieces of walnut. The veneer is outlined with triple-line stringing of light and dark woods. The lower edge of the splat meets a shoe just above the seat. S-curved arms slope gently downward from the rear stiles to the front of the seat. The arms terminate in flat, outwardly-turning scrolled handholds. There are narrow, relief-carved cyma curves on the top, outer edges of the arms where the meet the rear stiles. Cyma-curved arm supports are attached to the outer side edges of the seat frame and the underside of the arms. The trapezoidal seat is upholstered over the rails. The cabriole front legs have high-relief foliate carvings on the knees. Each front leg terminates in a flat pad foot with a small ledge at the back. The rear stump legs are chamfered on all edges between the seat and the stretchers. The rear feet are canted backward and chamfered on the front edges. Flat side and medial stretchers are cut in serpentine shapes. A turned rear stretcher with swelled center and arrow ends is mounted higher than the side and medial stretchers.

Object use

Seating furniture

Object type

Chair

Place of origin

Boston, Massachusetts; England; France

Basis of origin

Winterthur attributes the chair to Boston and the silk textile to England or France.

Date

1735-1745

Basis of date

Dated by Winterthur staff. The chair was reupholstered in 1960 using silk probably woven between 1705 and 1715.

Style

William and Mary; Queen Anne

Materials

Black walnut; Maple; Silk textile; Upholstery materials

Basis of materials

Woods identified by Winterthur through microanalysis: Primary: American black walnut; secondary: soft maple group (seat rails, splat).

Attributes & techniques

Cabriole legs; Stump legs; Club feet; Pad feet; Carving; Veneer; Banding; Varnishing

Dimensions

Height 43.5 in. (110.5 cm), Width 28.375 in. (72.07 cm), Depth 23.5 in. (59.7 cm)

History of ownership

The armchair is said to have been owned originally by Capt. John Holland (born 1758) and his wife Sarah (May) Holland (born 1772), and to have descended in either the Holland or the Beal families of Boston and Rhode Island.

Exhibition history

Exhibition: "Made in the Americas: The New World Discovers Asia," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, MA, August 18, 2015-February 15, 2016), Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (Winterthur, DE, March 26, 2016-January 8, 2017)

Bibliography

Book: John T. Kirk, American Chairs: Queen Anne and Chippendale (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), fig. 154.

Book: Jay E. Cantor, Winterthur (New York: Abrams, 1997), 105.

Catalog: Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, et al., New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Wilmington, DE: Winterthur Publications, 1997), cat. 13, 24-26.

Article: Joan Barzilay Freund and Leigh Keno, "The Making and Marketing of Boston Seating Furniture in the Late Baroque Style," in American Furniture, ed. Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1998): figs 20 and 34, 14-16.

Subject

Armchairs

Current owner

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

Credit

Museum purchase with funds provided by Henry Francis du Pont

Owner's accession number

1959.0069

Rights

Object owned by the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, https://www.winterthur.org/. Metadata and images digitized from the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection of the Winterthur Library. For reproduction requests or more information, contact DAPC at reference@winterthur.org.

Source

Decorative Arts Photographic Collection

Date digitized

2019-01-25

Date modified

2019-01-25

All materials are copyrighted by Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library or by participating institutions.

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