Lot Essay
With its plain molded crestrail and "crooked back," this high-back armchair belongs to a group of "leather chairs," as they were called in the eighteenth century, which were influenced in their design by contemporary English caned chairs. As part of the later phase of high-back leather chairs made in Boston by 1722, this chair features a plane-molded surface on its stiles and crestrail, which replaced the earlier use of turned stiles and floral carved crestrails (Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture 1630-1730, (New York, 1988), p.281-285).
The terms "elbow" and "armed" chairs were used interchangeably in the eighteenth century. Contemporary accounts record that such chairs were considerably more expensive and rarer than side chairs, probably due to the extra work and materials required to produce them (Forman, p. 286).
One closely related example Winterthur is illustrated in Forman, p. 343, cat. no. 79; second related example in the collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society is illustrated in Robert Bishop, Centuries and Styles of the American Chair 1640-1970 (New York, 1972), pl. 41, pp. 44-45.
The terms "elbow" and "armed" chairs were used interchangeably in the eighteenth century. Contemporary accounts record that such chairs were considerably more expensive and rarer than side chairs, probably due to the extra work and materials required to produce them (Forman, p. 286).
One closely related example Winterthur is illustrated in Forman, p. 343, cat. no. 79; second related example in the collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society is illustrated in Robert Bishop, Centuries and Styles of the American Chair 1640-1970 (New York, 1972), pl. 41, pp. 44-45.