Easy Chair

Date1765-1775

OriginAmerica, South Carolina, Charleston

MediumMahogany, tulip poplar, and bald cypress (by microanalysis).

DimensionsOH: 45 3/8"; OW: 28 1/2"; SeatD: 24 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1968-658,A

DescriptionAPPEARANCE: standard easy chair format; cabriole front legs with acanthus and scroll-carved knees flanked by cyma-shaped and carved knee blocks; front legs end in ball-and-claw feet; straight rear legs ending in shaped block feet; compass seat; flaring cone-shaped arm supports; arched crest rail; originally upholstered without brass nail trim.

CONSTRUCTION: The rear legs are spliced and nailed to the stiles, and the seat rails are tenoned into all four legs in the usual manner. Original quarter-round, vertically grained glue blocks survive in the front corners of the seat frame. The wing crests are nailed into open notches on the upper ends of the stiles and tenoned into the wing supports. The wing supports, in turn, are tenoned into the seat rails; those tenons are exposed on the outer surface of the rails and are secured with nails. The single-piece, cone-shaped arm supports are round tenoned into the side seat rails. The arms are screwed to the tops of the arm supports. The crest rail and lower back rail are tenoned into the stiles. The original upholstery treatment did not feature brass nail trim.

Materials: Mahogany legs; tulip poplar arm supports; all other components of bald cypress (by microanalysis).
Label TextIn most respects, this easy chair is typical of those produced in late colonial Charleston. Its construction mimics nearly every other local easy chair, and its knee carving strongly relates to work on several Charleston chairs and tables. Some of the chair's components deviate from local traditions, however, and may represent the specific orders of the original owner. Most notably, while the arms on a number of Charleston easy chairs have a wider spread than those from other American centers, the cone-shaped arms on the CWF chair are unusually broad. The arm configuration and most other elements of the chair were probably inspired by abundant British prototypes.

The identity of this chair's maker is unknown, although the account books of Charleston cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe list easy chairs with the same features, including feet carved in the shape of "Eagle claws." An idea of the relative value of the form can be gleaned from the same records. In November 1773, Elfe charged thirty-two pounds South Carolina currency for an easy chair with "castors, [and] carved feet," roughly the same price he normally asked for a pair of mahogany dining tables or a mahogany chest of drawers.

The use of casters on this chair is fully consistent with eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century practices in both Britain and America. Until recently, many collectors and curators assumed that the small brass or leather wheels found on the legs of easy chairs, sofas, tea tables, and other forms were Victorian additions; consequently, many of these fittings were removed and discarded. Records like the Elfe accounts now leave no doubt that casters were readily available to the consumer. Wheels were especially useful on easy chairs, which were regularly moved around a room to take best advantage of the available heat in winter.

InscribedNone.
MarkingsEarly twentieth-century gummed labels once attached to the chair read "Belonged to Gov. Daniels of S.C. given him by King William for solving trouble between England & Spain" and "the Gov. Daniels chair- Proprietary Gov. of South Carolina." These labels are now stored in the object file.
ProvenanceUntil his death in 1934, this chair was owned by Henry W. Averill, a collector in Branford, Connecticut. Averill purchased the chair directly from Eliza Hall Mitchell, who stated that the chair had descended through her ancestors, the Daniell, Hall, Lawrence, Gault, and Mitchell families of Charleston. The Gov. Robert Daniell referred to in the early twentieth-century labels on the chair died in 1718 and is too early to have been its first owner.

Exhibition(s)