The nation's largest selection of fine Classical & Colonial Furniture...
Just steps from the RISD Museum & John Brown House
A Chippendale Side Chair with Serpentine Crest / Volutes, Claw-and-Ball Feet, Mahogany, Boston, Massachusetts, c.1765
Scroll down for 10 more photos
This chair was formerly in G. Winthrop Brown Collection, Boston, Massachusetts, and was exhibited in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1920.
Of rococo design, this chair has an arched crest rail which ends in carved volutes, over a splat flanked by elongated C-scrolls. Broad sweeps of thumbnail-notched carving embellishes the splat which is centered by a carved rosette and pierced keyhole decoration above and below. Of interest is a 1768 portrait by John Singleton Copley of John Sherburne, a wealthy Boston merchant, which shows the splat of this grouping of chairs (see below).
An almost identical example is shown in American Chairs, Queen Anne and Chippendale by John T. Kirk, Item 120 from the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery (see scan below).
Other closely related chairs are illustrated in the following (both shown in scans below):
Height 37 in. Width 21 in. Depth 18 in.
Of rococo design, this chair has an arched crest rail which ends in carved volutes, over a splat flanked by elongated C-scrolls. Broad sweeps of thumbnail-notched carving embellishes the splat which is centered by a carved rosette and pierced keyhole decoration above and below. Of interest is a 1768 portrait by John Singleton Copley of John Sherburne, a wealthy Boston merchant, which shows the splat of this grouping of chairs (see below).
An almost identical example is shown in American Chairs, Queen Anne and Chippendale by John T. Kirk, Item 120 from the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery (see scan below).
Other closely related chairs are illustrated in the following (both shown in scans below):
- 300 Years of American Seating Furniture, Patricia E. Kane
- Exhibition and Sale at the American Art Association, Parke-Bernet, 1931
Height 37 in. Width 21 in. Depth 18 in.
