Side chair banister-back

Date1780-1820

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Caroline County

MediumMaple and hickory.

DimensionsOH:38 1/4" OW:22 1/4" SeatD: 18"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1966-388

DescriptionAppearance: Side chair with turned rear posts, front legs, and stretchers; back formed of two split balusters set between rectangular-section crest and stay rails; rush seat.

Construction: Other than hand-planed rectangular crest and stay rails with scratch-beaded decoration, all elements of this chair were produced on a lathe. The joinery throughout, including the rails, is post and hole.

Materials: Maple posts, back rails, and balusters; hickory lists and stretchers.
Label TextThis Virginia chair was likely made in the Rappahannock River basin. A number of virtually indistinguishable examples have been found in eastern Virginia, but only one has a firm history. It was originally owned at Old Mansion, a mid-eighteenth-century plantation house in Caroline County, just down the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg.

Characteristics shared by chairs in this group include flattened-ball finials, paired split balusters in the back assembly, maple legs, balusters, and rails, and hickory stretchers and lists. In common with most southern turned chairs, these have indented feet on all four posts. On the other hand, they do not exhibit the multiple decorative stretchers typical of the region. The CWF chair has only a single ornamented stretcher in the front, while the others in the group employ pairs of plain turned stretchers in the same location. Even so, there is little doubt that most of the chairs were made in the same shop.

Despite their earlier appearance, these chairs were probably made in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the relatively late date being suggested by their stature and details. The split-baluster chairs produced about the middle of the eighteenth century in New England often have an overall width under twenty inches and a height of up to fifty; in comparison, the chairs in the Virginia group are somewhat broad and short. The very delicate scratch beading on the rails of the Virginia chairs is consistent with post-Revolutionary furniture-making practices and has little in common with the heavier beading of earlier periods.

This Virginia chair was likely made in the Rappahannock River basin. A number of virtually indistinguishable examples have been found in eastern Virginia, but only one has a firm history. It was originally owned at Old Mansion, a mid-eighteenth-century plantation house in Caroline County, just down the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg.

Characteristics shared by chairs in this group include flattened-ball finials, paired split balusters in the back assembly, maple legs, balusters, and rails, and hickory stretchers and lists. In common with most southern turned chairs, these have indented feet on all four posts. On the other hand, they do not exhibit the multiple decorative stretchers typical of the region. The CWF chair has only a single ornamented stretcher in the front, while the others in the group employ pairs of plain turned stretchers in the same location. Even so, there is little doubt that most of the chairs were made in the same shop.

Despite their earlier appearance, these chairs were probably made in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the relatively late date being suggested by their stature and details. The split-baluster chairs produced about the middle of the eighteenth century in New England often have an overall width under twenty inches and a height of up to fifty; in comparison, the chairs in the Virginia group are somewhat broad and short. The very delicate scratch beading on the rails of the Virginia chairs is consistent with post-Revolutionary furniture-making practices and has little in common with the heavier beading of earlier periods.

InscribedNone.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceCWF acquired the chair from Miss Mary V. Williams, Richmond, VA, in 1966.