ATTRIBUTED TO STEPHEN BADLAM (1751-1815), DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, 1800-1810

Side chairs with shield-shaped backs were tremendously popular during the Federal period and were made in nearly every region of America, with varying regional differences. The example offered here, with tassel carving and a high arched crest, are often seen in Massachusetts. A related chair in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem exhibits similar proportions and stylistic elements (see Margaret Burke Clunie, Anne Farnam and Robert F. Trent, Furniture at the Essex Institute (Salem, 1980), p. 30, accession no. 103.713). The carved decoration on this chair distinguishes it from its contemporaries and permits an attribution to Stephen Badlam. Two chairs by Badlam in the collection of Winterthur Museum - a side chair and a lolling chair (see Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966), nos. 30 and 110) - exhibit pendant foliate carving on the legs that is reminiscent of the carving on this example and justify the attribution to his shop. The imbrication just below the tassels on the splats is a feature frequently seen on New York chairs but virtually unseen in Massachusetts-made chairs.