.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Surviving in remarkable original condition, this Philadelphia easy chair is an early example incorporating serpentine-shaped wings, single-scroll arm supports and a trapezoidal seat. The earliest documented Philadelphia easy chair with these new English-inspired designs is the renowned hairy-paw chair made by Thomas Affleck for John Cadwalader in 1770 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, acc. no. 2001-12-1). As discussed by Mark Anderson and Robert F. Trent, the craftsmen who made the Cadwalader chair likely copied the design and some construction practices from an imported prototype as it and a representative English example both feature a “serpentine crest rail; low stay rail or lower back rail; flat rear back rails [and] wings with straight ramps leading off from the rear posts” (Mark Anderson and Robert F. Trent, “A Catalogue of American Easy Chairs,” American Furniture 1993, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1993), pp. 217-219, figs. 8-13). As seen in photographs of this chair without its upholstery, these details are also seen on the chair offered here, which suggests it may have been made around the same time or soon after the Cadwalader chair. Differences evident in the photographs include the shaping of the inner edges of the wing rails. On the Cadwalader chair, these are shaped to parallel the outer edges while here and on the English example as well as later Philadelphia examples, these hidden edges are straight.
The assuredly carved ornament on the knees also supports a 1770s date of production. With abutting volutes on the knee returns and leg stock, the carving on this easy chair is similar to that on an easy chair at Winterthur Museum that aside front a straight instead of serpentine front seat rail, appears to emulate the chair frame designs discussed above (Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York, 1952), no. 86.).
As noted at the time of the chair’s sale in 2015, one of the rails bears a partial inscription “..ingham,” raising the possibility that this chair was owned by the Bingham family of Philadelphia. Members of this family included William Bingham (1752-1804), one of the wealthiest men in late eighteenth-century America. Along with his wife, Anne Willing (1764-1801), William was at the pinnacle of Philadelphia society during the early Republic and the couple is renowned for their sumptuously decorated mansion and in 1796 the commissioning of Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of President Washington.
The assuredly carved ornament on the knees also supports a 1770s date of production. With abutting volutes on the knee returns and leg stock, the carving on this easy chair is similar to that on an easy chair at Winterthur Museum that aside front a straight instead of serpentine front seat rail, appears to emulate the chair frame designs discussed above (Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York, 1952), no. 86.).
As noted at the time of the chair’s sale in 2015, one of the rails bears a partial inscription “..ingham,” raising the possibility that this chair was owned by the Bingham family of Philadelphia. Members of this family included William Bingham (1752-1804), one of the wealthiest men in late eighteenth-century America. Along with his wife, Anne Willing (1764-1801), William was at the pinnacle of Philadelphia society during the early Republic and the couple is renowned for their sumptuously decorated mansion and in 1796 the commissioning of Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of President Washington.