A PAIR OF CHIPPENDALE CARVED MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIRS

POSSIBLY MARYLAND, 1760-1780

Details

A PAIR OF CHIPPENDALE CARVED MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIRS
Possibly Maryland, 1760-1780
Each with a shaped crest flanked with outscrolling and volute-carved ears continuing to molded stiles centering a pierced vasiform-splat above a trapezoidal slip-seat, on cabriole legs with ball-and-claw feet
35in. high (2)

Provenance

Worthington Family, Virginia and Maryland
Francis Hill Bigelow
The Anderson Galleries, New York, Colonial Furniture: The Superb Collection of Mr. Francis Hill Bigelow, Part One, 17 January 1924, lot 131.

Literature

The Hudson-Fulton Celebration: Catalogue of an Exhibition Held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. II, New York, 1909, no. 151.
Copley Society Catalogue, no. 596.

Exhibited

New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The Hudson-Fulton Celebration," 1909.
Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1912.

Lot Essay

According to the Anderson Galleries catalogue, these chairs came from the Worthington family of Virginia, which moved to Maryland before 1780. At the time of this sale, the pair of chairs offered here were sold with others comprising a set of six. The design of the splat, an interlacing diamond within a figure of eight, was employed by both Philadelphia- and Massachusetts-area chairmakers. For chairs made in the Mid-Atlantic States with variations of this pattern, see Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of American Seating Furniture (Boston, 1976), nos. 99, 101, pp.118, 120 and Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (New York, 1993), p.43). Probably based upon an English prototype, the splat on these chairs closely resembles an English example with the same combination of interlaced diamond within figure of eight and triple Gothic-pierced motifs (Sack, p.43).