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Lot Essay
Based on English prototypes, this pair of chairs well illustrates the awareness of New York City furniture makers with fashionable London designs during the latter eighteenth century. The splat pattern, with its double paired volutes, opposing scrolls and recessed shaping to the lower half, is loosely based on plate 9 of Robert Manwaring's The Cabinet and Chair Makers' Real Friend and Companion (London, 1765) but is a closer copy of those seen on contemporary English-made chairs. As noted by John T. Kirk, imported chairs were most likely the direct source and an English chair with a history of being brought to Long Island in the eighteenth century displays a number of related details. These include the silhouette of the splat, the double paired volutes, recessed shaping in the lower half, over-upholstered trapezoidal seat, similarly rendered acanthus-leaf knee carving, ball-and-claw feet with raking side talons and rear club feet. A New York side chair now in the collections of Yale University Art Gallery (fig.1) is virtually identical in design to the pair offered here and appears to differ only in its use of a removable slip-seat and less articulated carved details, suggesting the hand of a different carver (John T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830 (New York, 1982), pp. 120-121, 267, nos. 306, 938, 940; Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of Seating Furniture (Boston, 1976), p. 143, cat. 121).
This pair of chairs has a history of descent in the Self family of Newark and South Orange, New Jersey. A likely source, and one of the few Self households in these locales in the early twentieth century, is the family of William Blakeman Self (1867-before 1940) and his wife, Margaret (Baldwin) Self (1869-after 1940), who lived in the circa 1760 house of her ancestor Jeptha Baldwin (1778-1852) on Center Street in South Orange. This house may have been part of the farm built by Jeptha's father, Benjamin Baldwin (1730-1804), who bequeathed the farm to his son in his 1801 will. It is possible that the chairs were made for Benjamin and his wife, Abigail Lindsley (1734-1779), who had married in 1754, and then descended, along with the house, to Benjamin's great granddaughter, Margaret (Baldwin) Self. Alternatively, the chairs made have been inherited by William Blakeman Self. His direct ancestors included John Burger (1747-1828), a New York City silversmith who married Sarah Baker (1744-1793) in 1767 and it is conceivable that these chairs were made for the couple around this time (Henry W. Foster, The Evolution of the School District of South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey (Geneva, 1930), p. 13; Naoma Welk, Images of America: South Orange (Charleston, 2002), p. 15; William H. Shaw, comp., History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, vol. II (Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 785-786).
This pair of chairs has a history of descent in the Self family of Newark and South Orange, New Jersey. A likely source, and one of the few Self households in these locales in the early twentieth century, is the family of William Blakeman Self (1867-before 1940) and his wife, Margaret (Baldwin) Self (1869-after 1940), who lived in the circa 1760 house of her ancestor Jeptha Baldwin (1778-1852) on Center Street in South Orange. This house may have been part of the farm built by Jeptha's father, Benjamin Baldwin (1730-1804), who bequeathed the farm to his son in his 1801 will. It is possible that the chairs were made for Benjamin and his wife, Abigail Lindsley (1734-1779), who had married in 1754, and then descended, along with the house, to Benjamin's great granddaughter, Margaret (Baldwin) Self. Alternatively, the chairs made have been inherited by William Blakeman Self. His direct ancestors included John Burger (1747-1828), a New York City silversmith who married Sarah Baker (1744-1793) in 1767 and it is conceivable that these chairs were made for the couple around this time (Henry W. Foster, The Evolution of the School District of South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey (Geneva, 1930), p. 13; Naoma Welk, Images of America: South Orange (Charleston, 2002), p. 15; William H. Shaw, comp., History of Essex and Hudson Counties, New Jersey, vol. II (Philadelphia, 1884), pp. 785-786).