Lot Essay
This gilded and painted armchair represents the height of fashion and accomplishment in post-Revolutionary Philadelphia design. Based on Plates 32 and 34 of Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book (London, 1802), these chairs were alternatively called at the time "Cabriole Chairs" (by Sheraton) or "Drawing Room Chairs" (by Hepplewhite). Sheraton went on to say about them,
"These chairs are finished in white and gold, or the ornaments may be japanned; but the French finish them in mahogany, with gilt mouldings [sic]...Chairs of this kind have an effect which far exceeds any conception we can have of them from an uncoloured [sic] engraving, or even a coloured one" (from The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book (London, 1802) as quoted in Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period New York, 1966) p. 145
The chair illustrated here adds an additional clue to the growing number of identified French-inspired Philadelphia-made white-painted and gilt-decorated seating forms. A set of 12 chairs and a settee are recorded in the Winterthur Library: Decorative Arts Photographic Collection (64.2069) as having belonged to Edward Burd of Philadelphia. Called the "Marie Antoinette Suite," these chairs and settee were sold in the Shippen Burd Collection sale at American Art Galleries, March 7 & 8, 1921, and were subsequently purchased by Fiske Kimball in 1929 for the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see Marie Kimball, "The Original Furnishings of the White House, Part I" Antiques, May 1929, p.484). A single chair with harp-shaped splat was sold Sotheby's New York, January 23, 1982, lot 1094. A group of four armchairs were sold in These Rooms, October 19, 1991, lots 210-213, of which one is in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery; one is in the collection of Bayou Bend, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; one is at Winterthur and one is in a private collection. Two other related chairs are also in a private collection. Another chair, acquired in 1960, is also in the collection at Winterthur, and is illustrated and discussed in Montgomery, pp. 142-145, no. 92. According to tradition, an additional settee and matching eight chairs, from which the previously enumerated are alleged to have come, also exist; the location of that last chair and settee are unknown.
Remaining upholstery evidence on the set of four chairs sold in 1991 and the chair illustrated here suggest two different sets of chairs. Papering the outside back tablet of the splat was an 18th century French-inspired technique of finishing chairs of this style. Evidence of glue on the outside back tablet of the chair recently accessioned and conferred by Winterthur suggests a similar upholstering technique to the chair illustrated here, though no evidence of paper survives. Remnants of orange silk fibers on the Winterthur chair imply the form was originally upholsterd in that fabric; the presence of blue paper on the outside back of the chair illustrated here suggests a matching fabric of that color, probably silk, as the original upholstery of this chair. In addition, the workmanship of the original stretched muslin upholstery underpinnings of the chair illustrated here were sewn to make stiff, sharp ledge over which the original upholstery would have been placed, thus creating a dramatic edge to the half over-upholstered seat rails; the later Winterthur chair underpinnings are not worked in this meticulous manner.
"These chairs are finished in white and gold, or the ornaments may be japanned; but the French finish them in mahogany, with gilt mouldings [sic]...Chairs of this kind have an effect which far exceeds any conception we can have of them from an uncoloured [sic] engraving, or even a coloured one" (from The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book (London, 1802) as quoted in Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period New York, 1966) p. 145
The chair illustrated here adds an additional clue to the growing number of identified French-inspired Philadelphia-made white-painted and gilt-decorated seating forms. A set of 12 chairs and a settee are recorded in the Winterthur Library: Decorative Arts Photographic Collection (64.2069) as having belonged to Edward Burd of Philadelphia. Called the "Marie Antoinette Suite," these chairs and settee were sold in the Shippen Burd Collection sale at American Art Galleries, March 7 & 8, 1921, and were subsequently purchased by Fiske Kimball in 1929 for the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see Marie Kimball, "The Original Furnishings of the White House, Part I" Antiques, May 1929, p.484). A single chair with harp-shaped splat was sold Sotheby's New York, January 23, 1982, lot 1094. A group of four armchairs were sold in These Rooms, October 19, 1991, lots 210-213, of which one is in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery; one is in the collection of Bayou Bend, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; one is at Winterthur and one is in a private collection. Two other related chairs are also in a private collection. Another chair, acquired in 1960, is also in the collection at Winterthur, and is illustrated and discussed in Montgomery, pp. 142-145, no. 92. According to tradition, an additional settee and matching eight chairs, from which the previously enumerated are alleged to have come, also exist; the location of that last chair and settee are unknown.
Remaining upholstery evidence on the set of four chairs sold in 1991 and the chair illustrated here suggest two different sets of chairs. Papering the outside back tablet of the splat was an 18th century French-inspired technique of finishing chairs of this style. Evidence of glue on the outside back tablet of the chair recently accessioned and conferred by Winterthur suggests a similar upholstering technique to the chair illustrated here, though no evidence of paper survives. Remnants of orange silk fibers on the Winterthur chair imply the form was originally upholsterd in that fabric; the presence of blue paper on the outside back of the chair illustrated here suggests a matching fabric of that color, probably silk, as the original upholstery of this chair. In addition, the workmanship of the original stretched muslin upholstery underpinnings of the chair illustrated here were sewn to make stiff, sharp ledge over which the original upholstery would have been placed, thus creating a dramatic edge to the half over-upholstered seat rails; the later Winterthur chair underpinnings are not worked in this meticulous manner.