Images(6)

Side Chair

Date1815

Maker John and Hugh Finlay

OriginAmerica, Maryland, Baltimore

MediumTulip poplar, maple and black walnut

DimensionsOH: 31 5/8"; OW: 18"; OD: 20 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2004-115

DescriptionAppearance: Yellow side chair painted with brown and white highlights with "square" caned seat; side seat rails tenoned into front and rear rails; seat attached to rear stiles with a screw through the back of stile; round, tapered front legs painted in descending bellflower type motif, legs pegged into underside of seat corners; one piece turned rear legs and offset stiles; faceted fronts of stiles painted with vertical torches; rounded stretcher between rear legs, two rounded stretchers between both front and back legs, rectangular stretcher between front legs painted with classical rinceau motif; large tablet at top of stiles painted red with yellow and black border, central gilded spread-wing eagle within a wreath flanked by gilded leaves and berries. This motif is thought to perhaps have been derived from Percier and Fontain; small rail below tablet painted yellow with a horizontal torch or bar entiwined in leaves and berries.

Construction: The stay rail is tenoned into the stiles which in turn are tenoned into the crest rail. The side seat rails are tenoned into the front and rear seat rails. The rear seat rails are relieved at the corners to receive the round stiles which are joined to the rail from the back with countersunk screws. The stiles extend to the floor forming tapered feet.

The front legs are round tenoned into the underside of the front seat rail. They are turned at the top, tapered in the mid-section and terminate with a final turning and slightly tapered feet.

The round stretchers use conventional post and hole construction to join to the legs. The front stretcher is tenoned to the front legs. The modern caned seat is tied through holes from the original seat.
Label TextClassical motifs drawn from the imagery of ancient Greek and Rome were popular in all types of decorative arts including painted furniture during the early years of the 19th century. The work of Baltimore Fancy furniture manufacturers John and Hugh Finlay drew heavily on designs by contemporary French designers Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, who incorporated archeologically inspired classical motifs such as the eagle surrounded by a laurel wreath (on the center of the tablet back) and the classical rinceau design (the symmetrical scroll along the front stretcher between the legs) into their work.

This side chair is from a set of twelve made by John and Hugh Finlay in 1815 for Richard Ragan, a Hagerstown, Maryland merchant. The chair is similar in form to set designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe for the White House in 1809. John and Hugh Finlay were commissioned to produce those chairs from Latrobe's design and Dolly Madison installed them in the White House drawing room. The design includes a tasseled cushion on its caned seat that has been reproduced for this example.
ProvenanceThis side chair, documented as one of a set of twelve made by John and Hugh Finlay (1799-1846) for Richard Ragan, a Hagerstown, Maryland merchant in 1815, is known through Ragan's account book (Maryland Historical Society Manuscript Collection). Ragan paid the Finlays $96 for the dozen chairs. This particular chair, along with seven others, descended through the original owner and was sold at Christie's October 10, 1987 auction, lot 241. There currently are nine known chairs of the original twelve. (Winterthur #1987.47, Maryland Historical Society #87.132.1&2, two other pairs and one single owned in three private collections; one single, possibly one mentioned previously, at PMA 2008-214-1.)