NEW YORK, 1760-1780

This chair is among a group of tassel-back chairs often called 'Van Rensselaer' chairs due to the existence of at least four sets of this type owned by various branches of this distinguished New York family. The splats, with a spade-shaped lower opening, all appear to have been cut from either the same or identical templates. Variations are evident in the carving of the acanthus leaves flanking the rocaille work on the crest rail and the treatment of the rear legs, some of which are shaped, some square. The present example, with its double C-scroll below the gouge-cut rocaille mantel in the center of the crest rail flanked by smaller acanthus leaves and square rear legs, appears to be from the same set as a pair of armchairs now in the collection of the White House, as well as an armchair at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is thought to have originally been the property of Jeremias (1738-1764) or his son John Jeremias (1762-1828) Van Rensselaer of Albany, New York (Clement E. Conger, "Decorative Arts at the White House," The Magazine Antiques (July 1979), p. 117, Pl. XII; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), p. 71, cat. no. 29).