ATTRIBUTED TO ANTHONY GABRIEL QUERVELLE (1789-1856), PHILADELPHIA, CIRCA 1825

Based on the scholarship of Robert C. Smith, this set of chairs can be firmly attributed to Anthony Gabriel Quervelle (1789-1856), one of Philadelphia's most accomplished cabinetmakers working in the Classical style. Smith describes their close relationship to the Ruckman family set of six chairs, which he attributes to Quervelle because of family history, the ownership of a labeled Quervelle pier table by the same family, and the presence of details seen on other labeled Quervelle furniture, including an 1827 desk-and-bookcase at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A distinguishing feature seen on both the desk-and-bookcase and this set of chairs is gadrooning terminating in foliate carving (see Smith article, cited above, pp. 516-517). According to the executor of her estate, the chairs were purchased by Ruth Chambers Stewart in 1928. They then passed to her son, Robert G. Stewart, a senior curator at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., from whose estate they were consigned to auction.