RHODE ISLAND-CONNECTICUT BORDER REGION, 1790-1800

Surviving as a set of six and with their old painted surfaces, these armchairs are a rare and important document of New England Windsor chairmaking. Their slender turnings and deeply sculpted seats illustrate practices favored along the Rhode Island-Connecticut border during the late eighteenth century. While lacking collarless turnings on the upper arm supports and legs, a similar chair is thought to have been made in Montreal and, as discussed by Nancy Goyne Evans, was likely made by a craftsman trained in the Rhode Island-Connecticut region (Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs (Winterthur, DE, 1996), pp. 655-666, fig. 8-43; David H. Conradsen, Useful Beauty: Early American Decorative Arts from St. Louis Collections (St. Louis, 1999), p. 39).