PHILADELPHIA, 1730-1740

Its splat and seat rails with a vibrant figured maple veneer, this side chair illustrates the work of an unidentified Philadelphia shop working in the 1730s. Other examples from this shop include chairs from three different sets, all with provenances in the Logan family. Like the use of veneers, other details seen on the Logan chairs, such as the use of a rear stretcher and C-scroll knee brackets, are practices seen in English chairs and rarely on American examples, suggesting that the shop was established or influenced by a craftsman with English training. Further linking this chair to the Logan chairs is the use of a dovetailed rather than round tenon joining the front leg to the seat rails (Philip D. Zimmerman, "Eighteenth-Century Chairs at Stenton," The Magazine Antiques (May 2003), pp. 122-126, pls. I, Ia, Ib, IV, fig. 2).