Child's high chair

Date1700-1750

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Middle Tidewater

MediumBlack walnut (by microanalysis).

DimensionsOH: 36 1/2"; OW: 14 1/4"; SeatD: 11 1/2"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1988-293

DescriptionAppearance: Child's high chair with turned rear posts with single ring turning above seat rail and blunt, turned finials; turned front posts with incised lines at joints with seat rails and stretchers; eight plain turned stretchers; front and rear seat rails square tenoned into posts and dadoed to receive a plank seat (now missing); original right arm (now whittled down) shows evidence of turned decoration; upper back rail sausage turned.

Construction: Except for the seat lists, all other joints on the chair are post-and-hole construction, and all were originally squared through-pins except for the crest rail.
Label TextBecause of their specialized function, relatively few high chairs were produced in early America. Most of the extant examples probably were owned by the gentry. Aside from their obvious utility in feeding infants, high chairs were put to a variety of other uses. For instance, they often were overturned so that toddlers gripping the finials as hand holds could steady themselves while pushing the chairs about the floor and learning to walk. The heavily flattened faces of the once-round front posts on this chair clearly indicate such use.

A broad range of references to specialized children's furniture are found in early Virginia records. In 1674, Captain Francis Mathews's "Parlour" in York County contained a variety of beds and chests, three old chairs, and "a Childs Chaire." Several forms of juvenile furniture are mentioned in the 1728 estate inventory of planter Arthur Allen. "[One] cradle[,] go cart and childs chair" were stored "In the Garrett over the Chamber" at Bacon's Castle, Allen's Surry County home, suggesting that his children were grown.

This high chair has a long history of ownership in Northumberland County, Virginia, and is part of an important central Tidewater turned-chair tradition based in the coastal counties between the Potomac and York Rivers. Related examples include a child's chair owned in King William County (CWF acc. 1988-439) and a high chair that descended in Essex County. The latter has sausage-turned arms like the crest rail on this chair (MESDA research file 3102). All of these examples display similar flattened-ball turnings and unusually bulbous finials, features common on many British and New England chairs made between 1650 and 1700. However, the Virginia chairs also feature a finial design quite similar to that on turned chairs produced in the same counties as late as the 1820s. The longevity of this turning tradition complicates the dating of the earliest chairs in the group.

The rounded and repetitive nature of the turned elements on the CWF high chair may indicate production in the early eighteenth century. So, too, may the original use of a plank seat like those found on early European turned chairs. Here the planks were set into rabbets now concealed by a later rush covering. The presence of a plank seat dictated several structural details that differ from those on chairs with woven bottoms. Here, the front and rear seat lists are square-tenoned into the leg posts, and the rounded ends of the side lists penetrate the tenons. The vertical back spindles are joined directly into the wide rear seat list instead of into a separate stay rail, an approach rarely used on chairs with woven bottoms because of their thin seat lists. That the round-tenoned ends of the side lists do not extend through the leg posts may suggest the maker's awareness of British customs.

InscribedA typewritten label sewn to the bottom of the rush seat reads:

"This chair belonged to Betsy Fauntleroy, who refused to marry George Washington and married Thomas Edwards of Virginia. Their son Griffin Edwards married Priscilla Lee, who was the daughter of Kendall Lee, who was the son of Richard Lee, the son of Hancock Lee, who was...the son of Col. Richard Lee of England, who came to Virginia about 1641, died 1664. He was Clerk of Council of Virginia; Atty. Gen. of Virginia; Sec. of State of Virginia; member of the House of Burgesses. / Virginia Hurst Hollowell- / Lucy Hurst Silverster, her mother. / Virginia Hurst, her grandmother. / Lucy Hughlett, her great-grandmother. / Virginia Fauntleroy Edwards, great, great grandmother. / Priscilla Lee, great, great, great grandmother. / Elizabeth Fauntleroy, Great, great, great, great grandmother."
ProvenancePurchased by source at auction of the estate of Frank Hollowell, Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Mr. Hollowell was the widower of the Virginia Hurst Hollowell mentioned in the label affixed to the bottom of the chair seat. According to family tradition, the chair descended through the Fauntleroy, Lee, Edwards, Hughlett, and Hurst families of the Northern Neck of Virginia.