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Lot Essay
I have good reason to think that King has a good model for the chairs.
--President James Monroe, May 1818, cited in Sumpter Priddy and Ann Steuart, “Seating Furniture from the District of Columbia, 1795–1820,” American Furniture 2010, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2010), p. 113.
Commissioned by President James Monroe for the White House, the suite represented by this armchair was made by Georgetown cabinetmaker William King, Jr. (1771-1854) in 1818. After the burning of the White House by the British in 1814, Monroe, a former Minister to France, set out on an ambitious refurbishing plan, including ordering 53 gilded armchairs from Parisian ébeniste Pierre-Antoine Bellangé for the Oval (now Blue) Room in 1817. The expense of this and other orders led Monroe to economise on subsequent purchases and for the East Room, he patronised King, a highly accomplished local craftsman, who charged $33 per chair. It is probable that Bellangé’s set influenced the design of King’s armchairs. Both have rectangular backs with raised, padded upholstery and partially over-upholstered seats with slightly bowed front rails. The gilded surfaces of the French chairs were later deemed too showy and in 1826, Congress passed a law requiring “all furniture purchased for use in the President’s House shall be as far as practicable of American or domestic manufacture” (cited in Patrick Sheary, DAR Museum Curator of Furnishings, “The Bellangé Chair from President Monroe's White House,” 20 September 2016, available at https://blog.dar.org/bellange-chair-president-monroes-white-house, accessed 1 December 2023).
Delivered in 1818, the King suite comprised twenty-four armchairs and four sofas yet remained unupholstered due to lack of funds until 1829. At that time, under President Andrew Jackson, the chairs and sofas were covered in “blue damask satin” by the Philadelphia firm of Louis Veron & Co. The suite adorned the East Room until 1873, when it was dispersed at auction after refurbishment at the beginning of President Ulysses S. Grant’s second term. Other surviving armchairs from the original suite include the following: Three chairs at The White House; a pair at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, acc. nos. 61.133.1, .2; the Baltimore Museum of Art, acc. no. 1998.504; Highland (James Monroe’s estate), Charlottesville, Virginia; Northeast Auctions, 8 August, 2004, lot 1544 and 7 November 2004, lot 706; Sotheby’s, New York, 19 October 1996, lot 224. For more on the suite and William King, see “Stately Suites,” American Spirit: Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, vol. 141, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2007), p. 11; Betty C. Monkman, The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families (New York, 2014), pp. 54–56; Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680–1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection (New York, 1997), pp. 155–60; Priddy and Steuart (cited above), pp. 113-116.
The armchair offered here may have later furnished the lobby of the infamous Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. It was later part of the estate of the actor Millard Fillmore Mitchell (1903-1953), who is thought to have acquired it from a Ford family descendant.
--President James Monroe, May 1818, cited in Sumpter Priddy and Ann Steuart, “Seating Furniture from the District of Columbia, 1795–1820,” American Furniture 2010, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2010), p. 113.
Commissioned by President James Monroe for the White House, the suite represented by this armchair was made by Georgetown cabinetmaker William King, Jr. (1771-1854) in 1818. After the burning of the White House by the British in 1814, Monroe, a former Minister to France, set out on an ambitious refurbishing plan, including ordering 53 gilded armchairs from Parisian ébeniste Pierre-Antoine Bellangé for the Oval (now Blue) Room in 1817. The expense of this and other orders led Monroe to economise on subsequent purchases and for the East Room, he patronised King, a highly accomplished local craftsman, who charged $33 per chair. It is probable that Bellangé’s set influenced the design of King’s armchairs. Both have rectangular backs with raised, padded upholstery and partially over-upholstered seats with slightly bowed front rails. The gilded surfaces of the French chairs were later deemed too showy and in 1826, Congress passed a law requiring “all furniture purchased for use in the President’s House shall be as far as practicable of American or domestic manufacture” (cited in Patrick Sheary, DAR Museum Curator of Furnishings, “The Bellangé Chair from President Monroe's White House,” 20 September 2016, available at https://blog.dar.org/bellange-chair-president-monroes-white-house, accessed 1 December 2023).
Delivered in 1818, the King suite comprised twenty-four armchairs and four sofas yet remained unupholstered due to lack of funds until 1829. At that time, under President Andrew Jackson, the chairs and sofas were covered in “blue damask satin” by the Philadelphia firm of Louis Veron & Co. The suite adorned the East Room until 1873, when it was dispersed at auction after refurbishment at the beginning of President Ulysses S. Grant’s second term. Other surviving armchairs from the original suite include the following: Three chairs at The White House; a pair at the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum, acc. nos. 61.133.1, .2; the Baltimore Museum of Art, acc. no. 1998.504; Highland (James Monroe’s estate), Charlottesville, Virginia; Northeast Auctions, 8 August, 2004, lot 1544 and 7 November 2004, lot 706; Sotheby’s, New York, 19 October 1996, lot 224. For more on the suite and William King, see “Stately Suites,” American Spirit: Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, vol. 141, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2007), p. 11; Betty C. Monkman, The White House: Its Historic Furnishings and First Families (New York, 2014), pp. 54–56; Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680–1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection (New York, 1997), pp. 155–60; Priddy and Steuart (cited above), pp. 113-116.
The armchair offered here may have later furnished the lobby of the infamous Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. It was later part of the estate of the actor Millard Fillmore Mitchell (1903-1953), who is thought to have acquired it from a Ford family descendant.