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Lot Essay
Descending in the Wistar family, this pair of chairs exhibits design and construction preferences of the "Wistar armchair shop," identified and discussed by furniture scholar Alan Miller. The chairs' splat design, front-to-back serpentine shaping of the splat and rear stiles, seat molding construction and relatively straight inner profiles of the front legs are all features employed by this shop, whose products demonstrate a hybridization of Irish, Continental European and Philadelphia practices. A closely related chair, that appears to vary only in the curvature of the crest and the addition of carved lambrequins on the knees, bears later labels attesting to its production by Edward Wright in 1749 and ownership by Elisha Lawrence of Chestnut Grove, New Jersey. As noted by Miller, Wright may have been the master of the Wistar armchair shop, but was more likely trained in the shop and followed its practices after setting up his own business. See Alan Miller, "Flux in Design and Method in Early Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Furniture," American Furniture 2014, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, 2014), pp. 55-66, for the Edward Wright chair, see p. 65, fig. 48.
Like the armchair that gives its name to the Wistar armchair shop, this pair of chairs has a history of ownership from Caspar Wistar (1696-1752). Owned by a direct descendant, the side chairs bear a later label indicating that they were part of a set of eighteen chairs owned by the famed glassmaker. The label also refers to them as a wedding gift to a daughter, Elizabeth, who cannot be found in the documentary record. Instead, the chairs were owned in the line of Caspar's son, Richard (1727-1781); they may have been originally owned by Caspar or by Richard, who married Sarah Wyatt (1733-1771) just months before his father's death, and continued his father's glassmaking business. After emigrating from Germany, Caspar Wistar became one of the largest landowners in Pennsylvania. In addition to the armchair mentioned above, another related set of chairs are noted to have descended from Caspar and include an armchair described as "masterpiece" by Albert Sack (Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture (New York, 1993), p. 28).
Like the armchair that gives its name to the Wistar armchair shop, this pair of chairs has a history of ownership from Caspar Wistar (1696-1752). Owned by a direct descendant, the side chairs bear a later label indicating that they were part of a set of eighteen chairs owned by the famed glassmaker. The label also refers to them as a wedding gift to a daughter, Elizabeth, who cannot be found in the documentary record. Instead, the chairs were owned in the line of Caspar's son, Richard (1727-1781); they may have been originally owned by Caspar or by Richard, who married Sarah Wyatt (1733-1771) just months before his father's death, and continued his father's glassmaking business. After emigrating from Germany, Caspar Wistar became one of the largest landowners in Pennsylvania. In addition to the armchair mentioned above, another related set of chairs are noted to have descended from Caspar and include an armchair described as "masterpiece" by Albert Sack (Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture (New York, 1993), p. 28).