Armchair

Date1730-1770

OriginAmerica, North Carolina or Virginia

MediumAsh (by microanalysis), hickory, and birch.

DimensionsOH:38 1/2" OW: 19" SeatD: 16"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1950-356

DescriptionAppearance: turned armchair with three graduated arched slats, the upper slat also arched along its lower edge; straight rear posts with inverted vasiform feet, the vasiform repeated at the top of the posts, surmounted by a cove molding, a tapered neck an "acorn" shaped finial; front posts have the same inverted vasiform feet, a vasiform turning below the seat, and terminate under the arm with three graduated vasiform turnings, the lower two seperated by incised raised rings and covettos and the upper separated by a fillet; flattened curved arms, rectangular in cross section with rounded upper edges, with flattened circle terminals; double stretchers on front and sides, single on rear, all symmetrically turned with tapered ends and vasiform shapes with incised lines, meeting at the center in a flattened broad disk filleted with two incised lines; half-round/half-tapered seat lists, with a splint seat.

Construction: the stretchers and seat lists are joined with round tenons, as are the arm supports, which are further secured with large wrought nails driven through the tops of the arms into the leg posts. Where the arms meet the rear leg posts, the joint shoulders are rounded to match the shape of the legs.

Materials: Ash posts, stretchers, and slats (by microanalysis); hickory lists; birch arms.
Label TextAesthetic and structural features on this chair illustrate several traditions commonly employed by makers of turned chairs in the early South. Unlike most American turned chairs, all of the feet and stretchers on this chair are ornamented. Also in the southern tradition, this chair has flattened arms with rounded terminals placed at three-fourths of its overall height instead of the two-thirds typically found elsewhere in the colonies.

Many rural southern artisans used the quasi-architectural turnings present on this chair. A high-post bedstead attributed to the Chowan River basin of North Carolina exhibits similar graduated balusters and related inverted baluster-form feet, while the turned flattened disks on the stretchers of an armchair with a Pasquotank County, North Carolina, provenance are much like those on the front stretchers of the CWF chair (collection, Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC). Unfortunately, these relationships do not provide the basis for a definitive local attribution; continued scholarship on southern turned chairs may eventually result in a more specific answer.

Even though the precise origin of this chair cannot be identified, a fair amount is known about how such forms functioned in the colonial South. Estate appraisals from the first half of the eighteenth century indicate that turned chairs with "rush" or "flag't" bottoms were less valuable than joined examples, particularly those with upholstery, and frequently were owned by less affluent householders. Yet inexpensive turned chairs were also used widely by even the wealthiest southerners, though most often in the less public spaces of their homes. In 1728, for example, Arthur Allen of Surry County, Virginia, used a dozen costly "Russia leather chairs" and eight "cane chairs" in his best rooms, but he placed eleven "rush bottom chairs" in the garret rooms. That same year, William Gordon, a wealthy planter from Virginia's Middlesex County, furnished his "Quarter" on the Eastern Shore with seven "old flagt." chairs.

InscribedNone
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe chair was purchased in 1950 from Mrs. Beverley Causey, a collector in King William County, Virginia.