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Lot Essay
With double-scroll crests, compass seats and shell-carved knees, these chairs illustrate costly examples of Philadelphia seating furniture from the mid-eighteenth century. The front rails of the chairs are similarly numbered III, IIII and V, suggesting that they were originally part of a set of at least six chairs. A closely related example also with a pierced vasiform splat is illustrated in William MacPherson Hornor, Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (1935), pl. 304.
Signed variously by Charles Eli Mendinhall (1898-after 1949) and his mother, the chairs may have descended directly in the family and originally owned by Charles' great great great-grandfather, Benjamin Mendenhall (1728-1797) of Kennett Meeting, Pennsylvania. He married Hannah Wilson in 1752 and the couple relocated to Delaware where their direct descendants remained until the 20th century. Charles Eli Mendenhall was the son of Joseph Henry (1870-1933) and Corrine H. Cochran (b. circa 1872) and according to US Census Records, was living with his parents at 1114 Broom Street, Wilmington until at least 1930. In 1938 he married Marguerite Gunn (or Greene) and in 1949, the date of the chairs' inscriptions, the couple was living in the same city at 1501 W. 11th Street. A member of the Elk River Yacht Club in Elkton, Maryland, Charles Eli Mendenhall worked in real estate and insurance. See Henry Hart Beeson, The Mendenhalls: A Genealogy (Houston, TX, 1991), pp. 7, 20, 49, 118, 235, 350; Polk's Wilmington City Directory (1948-1949), p. 657; the website of the Elk River Yacht Club, www.elkryc.com.
Signed variously by Charles Eli Mendinhall (1898-after 1949) and his mother, the chairs may have descended directly in the family and originally owned by Charles' great great great-grandfather, Benjamin Mendenhall (1728-1797) of Kennett Meeting, Pennsylvania. He married Hannah Wilson in 1752 and the couple relocated to Delaware where their direct descendants remained until the 20th century. Charles Eli Mendenhall was the son of Joseph Henry (1870-1933) and Corrine H. Cochran (b. circa 1872) and according to US Census Records, was living with his parents at 1114 Broom Street, Wilmington until at least 1930. In 1938 he married Marguerite Gunn (or Greene) and in 1949, the date of the chairs' inscriptions, the couple was living in the same city at 1501 W. 11th Street. A member of the Elk River Yacht Club in Elkton, Maryland, Charles Eli Mendenhall worked in real estate and insurance. See Henry Hart Beeson, The Mendenhalls: A Genealogy (Houston, TX, 1991), pp. 7, 20, 49, 118, 235, 350; Polk's Wilmington City Directory (1948-1949), p. 657; the website of the Elk River Yacht Club, www.elkryc.com.