Armchair, Splat-Back

Date1800-1815

MediumMahogany and tulip poplar.

DimensionsOH. 36 5/8; OW. 20 3/4; SD. 18 1/16.

Credit LineBequest of Gertrude H. Peck

Object number1980-139

DescriptionAppearance: Splat-back neoclassic armchair with trapezoidal slip seat, tapered legs, and H-plan stretchers.

Construction: Triangular, vertically grained mahogany corner blocks (double laminated at the front, solid at the rear) reinforce the frame. Thin tulip poplar strips that once supported a chamber pot frame are nailed to the lower inside edges of the seat rails and corner blocks. A flat shoe with single beaded edges is nailed to the top of the mahogany rear seat rail. Each arm is fixed to its stile with a single screw driven from the back. The arm supports are secured to the seat rails with two screws each, driven from the inside.

Materials: Mahogany chair frame, including corner blocks; tulip poplar support strips for the chamber pot frame.
Label TextAmerican chairmakers began to produce "vase-back" and "urn-back" chairs, today's shield-backs, about 1790. Square-back chairs like the one illustrated here were not introduced until later in the decade. According to the 1795 Journeymen Cabinet and Chair-Makers Philadelphia Book of Prices, the new "square-back Chair" was available in several formats, including the basic "straight top and stay rail" and the slightly more complex "hollow corner'd top rail" seen here. Various combinations of splats and ribs, plain, pierced, or carved, were also available, depending upon the customer's budget. The combination of details on the CWF chair--a square back with "hollow" corners, three beaded and carved ribs, and a straight front seat rail--became quite popular in Baltimore after the turn of the nineteenth century. The design may have been derived from plate 1 in Hepplewhite's 1794 Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide.

Many neoclassical chairs made in Baltimore were upholstered either fully or partially over the seat rails, although most were also available with cheaper slip seats for those consumers unwilling or unable to bear the higher expense of over-rail upholstery. These chairs were used in the parlors and dining rooms of the less affluent. The gentry procured them for use in bedchambers where slightly plainer and less costly seating was the norm. Because framing within the seat originally supported a chamber pot, connoting use in a private space, this chair probably fits in the latter category.

InscribedNone.
Markings"I" is chiseled inside the rear seat rail.
ProvenanceThe donor, Gertrude H. Peck, inherited the chair from John C. Toland, an early twentieth-century Baltimore collector of American furniture.