PROBABLY PENNSYLVANIA, 1800-1815

The rod-back Windsor form was first introduced in Philadelphia around 1800; it soon spread in popularity throughout most chairmaking centers. Double-rod back Windsors developed just after those with single-rod backs and survive in greater numbers; related examples include one in the collection of the Dietrich American Foundation and illustrated in Charles Santore, The Windsor Style in America (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 200-201, cat. no. 216; a second example bearing the label of Gilbert Gaw of Philadelphia, is in the collection at Winterthur Museum and is illustrated in Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs: Specialized Forms (New York, 1997), p. 116, fig. 1-86.

The presence of H-stretchers on this settee indicates that it is an early example; box-stretchers are considered by most scholars to be a later development of the form.