Lot Essay
The tassel-back and ruffle-carved splat of this chair and the following two lots and lots 247, 248, 254 and 255 were popular patterns made only in New York. These chairs are associated with at least four different known sets made for the important New York family, Van Rensselaer (Morrison Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985, p.71,no.29.) The known Van Rensselaer chairs descended in the families of Stephen Van Rensselaer, Jeremias Van Rensselaer, and a descendant of Killian Van Rensselaer. These examples are distinguished as "best" in pleasing appearance, proportions and execution by Albert Sack in Fine Points of Furniture (New York, 1950), p.42. A related example sold in these Rooms, June 23, 1993, lot 197.