Armchair, slat-back

Date1740-1800

MediumMaple, hickory

DimensionsOH: 38 3/4"; OW: 20 3/4"; SeatD: 17 1/2"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1938-114

DescriptionAppearance: Armchair with four bowed slats, arched along the top edge; straight-turned rear leg posts with two incised lines and a flattened disk at the top, surmounted by a covered neck with incised lines at the base and at the center, filleted at the top to support a flattened ball finial, with an incised line around the center, and missing its uppermost element (likely a small ball or spire); front legs are straight-turned with two incised lines and a flattened disk just above the seat, above which is a coved neck and flattened ball (with squared shoulders) with incised lines at the bottom, center, and top, surmounted by a tapered arm support terminating in a flattened disk, with an incised fillet, just below the arms; the arms are of a similar tapered shape, with three incised rings at the rear (two small around one large), and terminate in a more squared version of the turning on the arm support, similarly incised with lines at the back, center, and front, and rounded off at ends; splint seat on half-round/half-tapered seat lists; two plain-turned stretchers on the front and sides, one on the rear; legs terminate in two incised lines, below which are flattened ball feet.

Construction: The back slats are dramatically curved and consequently are mortised into the rear posts at a sharper angle than is the case on most chairs of this design. All other joinery reflects standard post-and-hole construction. The wooden pins used to secured the upper slats, arms, and front stretchers are later repairs.

Woods: Maple posts, arms, and slats; hickory seat lists and stretchers.
Label TextWhile the study of southern turned chairs has lagged behind that of the region's other furniture forms, growing interest in the subject has resulted in the recent identification of many local turning traditions. One of these is characterized by chairs with barrel-ended arms that extend over the arm supports, as seen on this maple example from Southside Virginia. Similar forms were made in the Delaware River valley and in southern Maryland. One of the Maryland chairs, which has a tradition of ownership in St. Michael's, Talbot County, mirrors the CWF chair in its use of columnar arm supports that rest on incised flattened-ball turnings and are capped by thin turned disks (MESDA research file 9402). An as yet unidentified European chair-making tradition was likely the design source for all of these chair groups.

Southern turners often repeated the same decorative motifs in several places on individual chairs and tables. For instance, the shape of the finial, the neck, and the incised lines on the CWF chair are echoed at the base of each arm support. The pattern is further developed in the elongated arm terminals. The incised lines above the flattened ball feet represent yet another variation on the initial pattern.

Such design regularity is an important way to identify other works by the same hand and speaks strongly of the complexity inherent in these deceptively simple forms. Many turned chair designs are rooted in systems of classical geometric proportioning that formed the basic aesthetic and structural languages of early turners, joiners, and carpenters. Among the numerically proportioned elements of this chair are the rear and side seat lists that are exactly the same length and the front leg posts that stand precisely two-thirds the height of the rear posts, a formula found on many American chairs.

InscribedNone
MarkingsNone
ProvenancePurchased in 1938 from Old Tavern Antiques, South Hill, Mecklenburg County, VA.