Images(4)

Side Chair

Date1840-1870

Maker Pleasant Hill Shaker Community

OriginAmerica, Kentucky, Mercer County, Harrodsburg, Pleasant Hill Shaker Village

MediumTulip poplar, oak, bast fiber (probably linen), and wool

DimensionsOverall: 38 3/4in. (98.4cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Mack and Sharon Cox

Object number2021-43

DescriptionLadder back chair with tall, inverted baluster shaped finials on tops of stiles; three arched and bent slats mortised into stiles; trapezoidal seat with wool woven bottom with red and cream tapes front to back and blue tapes in pattern side to side; double side and front stretchers, single rear stretcher; feet slightly tapered. Linen (bast) lining (not visible) wrapped around seat rails prior to wool tapes being woven onto the chair.
Label TextThis chair was likely made and used at the Pleasant Hill Shaker community in Mercer County, Kentucky. While furniture from northeastern Shaker communities usually illustrates distinctly Shaker forms or designs, much of that from the Kentucky Shaker communities at Pleasant Hill and South Union is more heavily influenced by local non-Shaker styles.

The provenance of this and related chairs in 20th-century collections around nearby Danville supports the attribution to the Pleasant Hill Shakers, whose furniture was locally auctioned in 1911 when the community was dissolved. Like many Shaker chairs, this one has a seat woven from wool or wool and linen tapes. The tapes used for the seat bottom on this chair are of a type documented at Pleasant Hill during the 19th century.

CW also owns a blanket chest from the Pleasant Hill community (acc. 2015-334).
ProvenanceDr. Sidney Wold estate, Danville, Ky.
Clifton Anderson