Smoking chair

Date1740-1750

MediumBlack walnut throughout.

DimensionsOH: 33" OW (arms): 26 3/4" SeatD: 26 1/2:

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard William Ballard from the estate of Mary Wrenn Cofer Ballard in honor of her daughters, Mary Wrenn Ballard Oliver and Anne Lewis Ballard Weaver.

Object number1988-462

DescriptionAppearance: Corner chair with three turned stiles, cabriole front leg with pad foot, two vase-shaped splats, half-round arm rail with top-mounted crest rail, and upholstered slip-seat.

Construction: As in side chair construction, the seat rails are tenoned into the front leg and the three stiles. The slip-seat frame rests in rabbets cut into the front seat rails and on thin black walnut strips nailed onto the rear seat rails. The bases of the splats are let into open mortises on the inner faces of the rear seat rails and then covered with black walnut inserts. The shoes and the rear seat rails are separate elements. The two halves of the arm rail are lapped at the center and secured to the crest rail with glue and nails.
Label TextExecuted in the late baroque style, this Virginia smoking chair is a relatively early American example of the form. Although little Chesapeake seating furniture of this period is known, several side chairs discovered in southeastern Virginia are almost certainly by the same hand. Details shared by both smoking and side chairs in the group include the shapes of the cabriole legs and turned front feet, the cyma-shaped seat rail returns, the uncommon splat pattern, and the profile of the molded shoe. Additionally, both forms feature splats that are seated into mortises cut into the inner faces of the rear seat rails and then filled with a separate block once the splat was in place.

An urban origin for all of these chairs is clearly implied by their modish design and refined construction, but the specific place where they were produced is unknown. The smoking chair illustrated here descended in the Wrenn and Cofer families of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties in Virginia's lower Tidewater region. Of the known side chairs, the only examples with a firm history belong to a set of six first owned by the Carter family in Albemarle County (MESDA research file 8615). Separated by more than one hundred miles, the Albemarle and the Surry-Isle of Wight areas were distinctly rural places in the first half of the eighteenth century. It is highly unlikely that either locale could have supported an artisan capable of turning out such relatively sophisticated late baroque seating. However, both districts also lay in the James River valley and both traded with towns like Norfolk and Williamsburg, where the cabinet trade was fully established by the time these chairs were produced.

InscribedNone.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe chair descended through the Wrenn and Cofer families of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, VA, to Mary Wrenn Cofer Ballard.