A CHIPPENDALE CARVED MAHOGANY SIDE-CHAIR

Property of A DESCENDANT OF THE ORIGINAL OWNER

Details

A CHIPPENDALE CARVED MAHOGANY SIDE-CHAIR
PHILADELPHIA, 1760-1780

The serpentine crest with foliate-carved concave center and foliate-carved ears above a trefoil-pierced splat with carved C-scrolls, foliage and egg-and-dart carved shoe flanked by molded stiles above a trapezoidal slip seat, the front seat rail with C-scrolls centering foliate carving, on cabriole legs with faliate-carved knees centering a cabochon and ball-and-claw feet, "IV" incised on rear seat rail strip and on slip seat frame (2)

Provenance

Mrs. Charles Pemberton Fox
Mr. Sargent Fox

Literature

William Macpherson Horner, Jr., Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture (Washington, D.C.), pl. 346

Lot Essay

The design of this side-chair is directly taken from Thomas Chippendale's Director (1754 ed., plate XIII) and represents one of the most popular chair patterns used in Philadelphia in the second half of the 18th century. Another side chair from the same set (No. III incised on the rear seat rail and on seat frame) is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and is illustrated and discussed in Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), pp. 100-103, fig. 55. For a related side-chair, with an identical carved front shirt
and knees, see William Macpherson Horner, Jr., Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture (Washington, D.C., 1935), pl. 163.