CARVING ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN POLLARD (1740-1787), PHILADELPHIA, 1765-1780

Carved by one of Philadelphia's most accomplished carvers of the era, this side chair is an exceptional survival of the City's Rococo style. The carved ornament is attributed to John Pollard (1740-1787) based on similarities in design and execution to other examples attributed to his hand. The acanthus-leaves, bellflowers and pendant beads are distinctive and rendered with a distinctive robust quality; virtually identical details are seen on several Pollard-attributed forms, including chairs made for John Cadwalader, Charles Thomson, and the Wistar family (see Christie's New York, Property Deaccessioned from Stratford Hall Plantation, December 4, 2003, lot 2; Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (Madison, WI, 1984), cat. 63, pp. 144-145; Christie's New York, Property from the Collection of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, January 21, 2006, lot 535). Trained in London, John Pollard had arrived in Philadelphia by 1765, when the cabinetmaker Benjamin Randolph (1721-1791) recorded a payment for Pollard's rent in his receipt book. Along with Hercules Courtenay, Pollard worked in Randolph's shop during the late 1760s and by 1773, he had set up his own business in partnership with Richard Butts (Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), p. 114). Although lacking the carved embellishments, a chair labeled by Randolph bears the same overall splat design (Samuel W. Woodhouse, Jr., "More About Benjamin Randolph," The Magazine Antiques (January 1930), p. 24, fig. 5). This pattern was undoubtedly used by competing cabinetmakers, but with its carver's known employment in the shop, this chair may very well have been made by Benjamin Randolph.

Displaying the same overall design and combination of carved ornament, at least three other chairs from this set are known. Two, marked II and III are in the collection of the Honolulu Academy of Arts and a third is in the collection of the J.B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky (see James F. Jensen, "Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century American furniture at the Honolulu Academy of Arts," The Magazine Antiques (May 1978), p. 1091, fig. 11; Winterthur Library, Decorative Arts Photographic Collection (DAPC), no. 96.216). Another chair from this set, or possibly a duplicate reference, is illustrated in Israel Sack Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol. V, p. 1168, P3925.