ATTRIBUTED TO THE WORKSHOP OF COLONEL SIMON LATHROP (1689-1774), NORWICH, CONNECTICUT, 1740-1760

The distinctive design of this chair, from the attenuated splat to the scalloped seat rail and robustly turned side stretchers, hails its origins in Norwich, Connecticut. Marked I with a single v-shaped notch on its seat frame and slip-seat, it is part of the same set as four others, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that are similarly marked with numbers 2, 3, 4 and 6. The MMA chairs retain their original crewelwork covers, replicated here in the chair's modern covering. A chair seemingly from the same set and possibly the chair offered here, was advertised in 1977. A closely related set that varies slightly in proportions includes an example in the collections of Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. See Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), pp. 39-41, cat. 5; Salander Galleries, Inc., advertisement, The Magazine Antiques (May 1977), p. 940; Nancy Goyne Evans, catalogue entry, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Winterthur, Delaware, 1997), pp. 37-38, cat. 20.