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Lot Essay
Sophisticated, worldly and exceedingly rare, this side chair encapsulates qualities associated with the most esteemed furniture from colonial New York. The chair with its intricately rendered cypher celebrates a union of two of the city's most illustrious families, the Livingstons and Beekmans, and is from the only known American set to display such ornament. Comprising eight chairs, the set may survive in its entirety with five chairs in public collections. A New York interpretation of Georgian designs, this chair well illustrates both its origins and a larger world view of its makers and owners.
Carved according to convention with the letters R, M and L variously positioned in mirror-image duplication or simply centered, the cypher ornament refers to its owners and reveals an awareness of current London designs. As discussed in the catalogue entry for a chair from the same set at Bayou Bend, the fashion for cypher-ornamented furniture in England began in the early 1750s, around the same time that such devices were becoming outmoded in silver forms. A sketch by London designer John Linnell displays an armchair with a back adorned with the letters ES similarly intertwined as those on the Livingston-Beekman chairs (fig. 3). Dating to c.1755-1760, the sketch is contemporaneous or possibly even later than these chairs, revealing that the maker or possibly the owners of these chairs were conversant with the latest styles from Europe. New York chairmakers frequently borrowed from Georgian design and this chair's low back, wide compass seat and overall breadth reflect the city's preference for the proportions of English chairs. Furthermore, the seat frame was constructed with open braces, another aspect of English furniture (David B. Warren et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Princeton, New Jersey, 1998), p. 25; Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell: Eighteenth Century London Furniture Makers (London, 1980), vol. 1, p. 78 and vol. 2, p. 24, no. 41; Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of Seating Furniture (Boston, 1976), p. 81).
Displaying distinctively rendered legs and feet, this chair and its set were carved in an identifiable albeit unnamed carving shop that included at least one foreign-trained craftsman. This shop's products included two china tables (fig. 4), a card table, a dining table, a side chair, a suite of furniture as well as the Livingston-Beekman set of chairs, the "most ambitious seating forms" of the group. As identified and discussed by Luke Beckerdite, these chairs and others from the shop "have dramatic serpentine legs with slender ankles and claw-and-ball feet with small rear talons and almost no webbing" (Luke Beckerdite, "Immigrant Carvers and the Development of the Rococo Style in New York, 1750-1770," American Furniture 1996, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1996), pp. 256-262). Further linking the products of this shop, the carver embellished some of the tables with bold gadrooning, such as that seen in fig. 4, and the carved shell on this chair, with its deep, undulating lobes reflects a preference for this ornament. In addition, the same shaped rear legs with penny-like feet are seen on one of the shop's earlier products (Beckerdite, p. 257, fig. 50).
Both heirs to immense fortunes, Robert R. Livingston (1718-1775) and his wife Margaret Beekman (1724-1800) represented two of the most powerful families in the state. They married in 1742 and while several have speculated that these chairs were made around the time of their wedding, they were most likely made about eight to eighteen years later. While the elaborate cypher carving may have served to communicate their social stature and economic means, the intertwined initials may also have been an expression of the couple's love for each other. Their enduring devotion is recorded in their own words. In 1755, Robert wrote to his wife, "You are the cordial drop with which Heaven has graciously thought to sweeten my cup" and after his death, Margaret remembered her husband with,
At the age of eighteen I was made the happy wife of Robert R. Livingston; to say that my best friend was an agreeable man would but ill express a character that shone among the brightest; his finely cultivated understanding, his just and wise decisions as a judge, a patriot ever attentive to the interests of his country and a discerning politician. These were all brightened by an unequalled sweetness of disposition, and a piety that gilded every action of his life.
Margaret hints at her husband's illustrious career. After training as a lawyer and serving in the Provincial Assembly, Robert Livingston served as Judge of Admiralty and Judge of the Supreme Court of New York. An early critic of the overreaching powers of the English crown, "his liberal views were notorious" and earned him ardent enemies amongst his Loyalist colleagues. With the imminent passage of the Stamp Act, Livingston noted in 1764, "these duties are only the beginnings of evils" and became a member of the Committee of Correspondence and Stamp Act Congress. After witnessing a riot against the taxes, Livingston presciently warned, "should the Act be enforced, there is the utmost danger, I speak with the greatest concern imaginable, of a civil war." As a large landholder, he remained wary of war up to its outbreak and in 1775, died at his country seat, Clermont, on the Hudson River (fig. 6) (Edwin Brockholst Livingston, The Livingstons of Livingston Manor (New York, 1910), pp. 148-155).
As indicated by a plaque on the back of the crest, this chair may have at one time been part of the furnishings of Clermont and the set may have originally furnished the country estate or the couple's townhouse in New York City. During the Revolutionary War, Clermont was burned to the ground, but given ample warning, the widowed Margaret was able to save her household goods and rebuild a grand house along the original designs. The chairs may have later been owned as a set or in part by their son, Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813), who inherited Clermont and was renowned for being on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, swearing in George Washington for his first term as President and negotiating the Louisiana Purchase (see following lot for his portrait attributed to Gilbert Stuart). The plaque on the back of the chair may also refer to a 1792 house built by the younger Robert R. Livingston and also called Clermont. This "new" Clermont was inherited by his daughter Margaret Maria (1783-1818) in whose lines other chairs are known to have decscended. Originally part of a set of eight chairs, at least seven are now known including the chair offered here. Six chairs passed down Alice Cutts Wainwright, whose husband, John Tillotson Wainwright II was the great-great grandson of Margaret Maria. In 1952 or soon before, Mrs. Wainwright sold four of these chairs to the dealer Roger Bacon of Exeter, New Hampshire who in turn sold them to John Walton; Walton sold one privately and three to museums, Bayou Bend, the Yale University Art Gallery and Winterthur Museum (fig. 5). The two other chairs owned by Mrs. Wainwright comprise one formerly on loan to the Museum of the City of New York and acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1988 and another acquired by the Art Insitute of Chicago in 1971. The chair that was sold by John Walton privately in 1952 may be the chair offered here; it could also be the one currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or a third chair referenced by previous scholars but whose location has not been published. The chair offered here is marked V, while those at Winterthur Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Cleveland Museum of Art are marked I, IIII and VI respectively and the slip-seat frame of the chair at Bayou Bend is marked IIII ("The Story of Clermont," at www.clermontny.org; Henry Hawley, "A Livingston Chair," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 76, no. 9 (November 1989), pp. 326-331; Warren, pp. 25-26, which includes a list of publications referencing the chairs from this set; Kane, p. 82).
Carved according to convention with the letters R, M and L variously positioned in mirror-image duplication or simply centered, the cypher ornament refers to its owners and reveals an awareness of current London designs. As discussed in the catalogue entry for a chair from the same set at Bayou Bend, the fashion for cypher-ornamented furniture in England began in the early 1750s, around the same time that such devices were becoming outmoded in silver forms. A sketch by London designer John Linnell displays an armchair with a back adorned with the letters ES similarly intertwined as those on the Livingston-Beekman chairs (fig. 3). Dating to c.1755-1760, the sketch is contemporaneous or possibly even later than these chairs, revealing that the maker or possibly the owners of these chairs were conversant with the latest styles from Europe. New York chairmakers frequently borrowed from Georgian design and this chair's low back, wide compass seat and overall breadth reflect the city's preference for the proportions of English chairs. Furthermore, the seat frame was constructed with open braces, another aspect of English furniture (David B. Warren et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Princeton, New Jersey, 1998), p. 25; Helena Hayward and Pat Kirkham, William and John Linnell: Eighteenth Century London Furniture Makers (London, 1980), vol. 1, p. 78 and vol. 2, p. 24, no. 41; Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of Seating Furniture (Boston, 1976), p. 81).
Displaying distinctively rendered legs and feet, this chair and its set were carved in an identifiable albeit unnamed carving shop that included at least one foreign-trained craftsman. This shop's products included two china tables (fig. 4), a card table, a dining table, a side chair, a suite of furniture as well as the Livingston-Beekman set of chairs, the "most ambitious seating forms" of the group. As identified and discussed by Luke Beckerdite, these chairs and others from the shop "have dramatic serpentine legs with slender ankles and claw-and-ball feet with small rear talons and almost no webbing" (Luke Beckerdite, "Immigrant Carvers and the Development of the Rococo Style in New York, 1750-1770," American Furniture 1996, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1996), pp. 256-262). Further linking the products of this shop, the carver embellished some of the tables with bold gadrooning, such as that seen in fig. 4, and the carved shell on this chair, with its deep, undulating lobes reflects a preference for this ornament. In addition, the same shaped rear legs with penny-like feet are seen on one of the shop's earlier products (Beckerdite, p. 257, fig. 50).
Both heirs to immense fortunes, Robert R. Livingston (1718-1775) and his wife Margaret Beekman (1724-1800) represented two of the most powerful families in the state. They married in 1742 and while several have speculated that these chairs were made around the time of their wedding, they were most likely made about eight to eighteen years later. While the elaborate cypher carving may have served to communicate their social stature and economic means, the intertwined initials may also have been an expression of the couple's love for each other. Their enduring devotion is recorded in their own words. In 1755, Robert wrote to his wife, "You are the cordial drop with which Heaven has graciously thought to sweeten my cup" and after his death, Margaret remembered her husband with,
At the age of eighteen I was made the happy wife of Robert R. Livingston; to say that my best friend was an agreeable man would but ill express a character that shone among the brightest; his finely cultivated understanding, his just and wise decisions as a judge, a patriot ever attentive to the interests of his country and a discerning politician. These were all brightened by an unequalled sweetness of disposition, and a piety that gilded every action of his life.
Margaret hints at her husband's illustrious career. After training as a lawyer and serving in the Provincial Assembly, Robert Livingston served as Judge of Admiralty and Judge of the Supreme Court of New York. An early critic of the overreaching powers of the English crown, "his liberal views were notorious" and earned him ardent enemies amongst his Loyalist colleagues. With the imminent passage of the Stamp Act, Livingston noted in 1764, "these duties are only the beginnings of evils" and became a member of the Committee of Correspondence and Stamp Act Congress. After witnessing a riot against the taxes, Livingston presciently warned, "should the Act be enforced, there is the utmost danger, I speak with the greatest concern imaginable, of a civil war." As a large landholder, he remained wary of war up to its outbreak and in 1775, died at his country seat, Clermont, on the Hudson River (fig. 6) (Edwin Brockholst Livingston, The Livingstons of Livingston Manor (New York, 1910), pp. 148-155).
As indicated by a plaque on the back of the crest, this chair may have at one time been part of the furnishings of Clermont and the set may have originally furnished the country estate or the couple's townhouse in New York City. During the Revolutionary War, Clermont was burned to the ground, but given ample warning, the widowed Margaret was able to save her household goods and rebuild a grand house along the original designs. The chairs may have later been owned as a set or in part by their son, Robert R. Livingston (1746-1813), who inherited Clermont and was renowned for being on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, swearing in George Washington for his first term as President and negotiating the Louisiana Purchase (see following lot for his portrait attributed to Gilbert Stuart). The plaque on the back of the chair may also refer to a 1792 house built by the younger Robert R. Livingston and also called Clermont. This "new" Clermont was inherited by his daughter Margaret Maria (1783-1818) in whose lines other chairs are known to have decscended. Originally part of a set of eight chairs, at least seven are now known including the chair offered here. Six chairs passed down Alice Cutts Wainwright, whose husband, John Tillotson Wainwright II was the great-great grandson of Margaret Maria. In 1952 or soon before, Mrs. Wainwright sold four of these chairs to the dealer Roger Bacon of Exeter, New Hampshire who in turn sold them to John Walton; Walton sold one privately and three to museums, Bayou Bend, the Yale University Art Gallery and Winterthur Museum (fig. 5). The two other chairs owned by Mrs. Wainwright comprise one formerly on loan to the Museum of the City of New York and acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1988 and another acquired by the Art Insitute of Chicago in 1971. The chair that was sold by John Walton privately in 1952 may be the chair offered here; it could also be the one currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or a third chair referenced by previous scholars but whose location has not been published. The chair offered here is marked V, while those at Winterthur Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Cleveland Museum of Art are marked I, IIII and VI respectively and the slip-seat frame of the chair at Bayou Bend is marked IIII ("The Story of Clermont," at www.clermontny.org; Henry Hawley, "A Livingston Chair," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 76, no. 9 (November 1989), pp. 326-331; Warren, pp. 25-26, which includes a list of publications referencing the chairs from this set; Kane, p. 82).