Displaying a distinctive shield-shaped back and inlay simulating fluting, this backstool was described as “outstanding and extraordinary” by Charles F. Montgomery just prior to his publication of Winterthur Museum’s collection of Federal furniture. At least three other chairs with related upholstered backs are known, including a pair at Winterthur Museum and a single chair in a private collection. With its stretchers and ornament, the chair offered here may be the earliest and most elaborate of the type known.  All the related examples lack stretchers and are more simply decorated
with line-inlaid or molded legs (letter, Charles F. Montgomery, Senior
Research Fellow, Winterthur Museum to Joseph K. Ott, 4 November 1965,
Joseph K. Ott Papers; Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, The
Contents of the Captain Henry Lay Champlin House, Property from the
Collection of Geoffrey Paul, 4 August 2002, lot 637)

Possibly made in both locales, chairs of this design have been
considered the work of Rhode Island and Massachusetts craftsmen. Charles
Montgomery noted that he believed the shaping of the back represented a
Rhode Island type as Winterthur’s related pair of chairs has chestnut
glueblocks, others known to Montgomery were found in Rhode Island or
nearby in Massachusetts and that similar shaping is seen on Federal side
chairs from the state. The third related chair also has chestnut
glueblocks, supporting a Rhode Island attribution while wood analysis
reveals that the rails of the chair offered here are ash, a wood used
throughout New England. Furthermore, two chests-ofdrawers from the era
have inlay that like that on the legs of the chair offered here appear
to represent fluted or even stop-fluted ornament. Long thought to have
been made in Rhode Island, these chests are now ascribed to either Rhode
Island or Massachusetts (letter, Charles F. Montgomery to Joseph K.
Ott, cited above; Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal
Period (New York, 1966), pp. 94-95, no. 43; The Rhode Island Furniture
Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery, RIF719, RIF4705, RIF1657 and
RIF1658).

Related pieces in our collection include:

A Mahogany Late Chippendale / Federal Chest with Line Inlay, Newport, c.1790/1800

An Inlaid Mahogany Hepplewhite Demi-lune Card Table with Five Legs, Newport, RI , c.1800

A Chippendale Gentleman’s Chair, Newport, c.1800

Height: 36 in. Seat Height: 17 in.
Width:
22 in. Depth: 18 1/4 iin.