POSSIBLY THE SHOP OF THOMAS TUFFT (CIRCA 1740-1788), PHILADELPHIA, CIRCA 1770

Displaying a Gothic design from Thomas Chippendale and accomplished carved ornament, this pair of chairs exemplifies the Philadelphia taste during the Rococo era. At least six other chairs from the same set have been published: A pair that descended in the Tyson-Fitzhugh family of Carroll County, Maryland (see following lot); a pair that sold, Sotheby's, New York, 18 January 2003, lot 909; a single chair that like the pair offered here descended in the Smith-Marsh family (Israel Sack, Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol. VII, p. 1785, P5026); and another single chair (Joseph K. Kindig III, The Philadelphia Chair, 1685-1785 (York, Pennsylvania, 1978), no. 57). Closely related carving is seen on furniture labeled by or attributed to Thomas Tufft and it is very possible that these chairs were made in the same shop. A high chest and dressing table both labeled by Tufft feature knees with opposing C-scrolls and leafy clusters and two sets of side chairs made for Richard Edwards and documented to Tufft exhibit seat rails with C-scroll edged shaping and knee returns that terminate in scrolling leafage, all of which are seen on the pair offered here. Furthermore, the Edwards chairs, a side chair labeled by Tufft at Winterthur Museum and the pair offered here all have side seat rails with rear shaping that is integral to the rail (rather than applied) and splats seated in the shoes, construction similarities that support an attribution to the same shop (the labeled casepieces are now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; for the high chest, see Christie's, New York, 25 June 1991, lot 276; for the Edwards chairs, see Christie's, Important Philadelphia Furniture from the Edwards Family, 28 May 1987, lot 201 and Carl M. Williams, "Thomas Tufft and His Furniture for Richard Edwards," The Magazine Antiques (October 1948), p. 247; for the Winterthur side chair, see John T. Kirk, American Chairs: Queen Anne and Chippendale (New York, 1972), p. 92, fig. 91). The pair offered here were noted to have descended from the Smith-Marsh family at the time they were sold by Israel Sack, Inc. and along with another chair from the same set, appear in a nineteenth-century photograph of the family's parlor (see Israel Sack, Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol. VII, p. 1712).