PHILADELPHIA, 1735-1755

With rounded stiles and shaped stretchers, this pair of side chairs display costly features and are among the more elaborate of this type to survive from eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Adding to their importance, the chairs have remained in the family for which they were made and the current generation hails from a number of prestigious Philadelphia families, which in addition to the Logans, include the Fisher, Fox and Hollingsworth families. According to family history, the chairs descended from the Logan side of the family and possible original owners include the current owners' direct ancestors, James Logan (1674-1751) and his son William Logan (1718-1776). Philadelphia's leading political figure during the early eighteenth-century, James Logan built Stenton, his Germantown country house in the 1720s. His son, William married Hannah Emlen (1722-1777) in 1740 and eleven years later, inherited Stenton. These chairs may have furnished Stenton during James' ownership; alternatively, they may have been made upon the occasion of William's marriage or the inheritance of his father's estate.