An Important Set of Six Early Cherry Chairs with Horseshoe Seat, Claw-and-Ball Feet, with Carved Knees, Providence, Rhode Island, c.1760
Text of an Identification Document provided by Bernard & S.Dean Levy follows:
I have examined this set of chairs and found it to be as described
below:
Important Set of Six Transitional Queen Anne-Chippendale Side
Chairs
Attributed to Grindall Rawson (1719 - 1803)
Providence, Rhode
Island circa 1760 - 1770
Primary wood: Cherry
Secondary wood: Cherry
seat frames, Pine blocks
Height: 37 inches
Width: 21 ½
inches
Depth: 18 ¼ inches
Provenance: Moses Parsons, father of
Theophilus Parsons, Massachusetts; The Parsons Family to Mary Parsons Long,
Princeton, New Jersey.
Reference: Bernard & S. Dean Levy, Inc.
Gallery Catalog I, page 16.
A set of six cherry side chairs with serpentine
crest rails ending in moulded ears above a pierced and carved splat, above a
horseshoe shaped seat. The cabriole shell and bellflower carved front legs are
connected by block and turned stretchers, and end in ball and claw feet. The
chairs are in excellent condition, and have their original seat frames, and have
only the normal repairs expected from use and wear.
In determining the origin of the chairs to be Rhode Island, most probably
Providence, we based our opinion in part by the process of elimination. The
splat is similar to Massachusetts examples, but the carving of the shell and
bellflower on the knee of cabriole legs, and the heavily webbed claw and ball
foot, are Rhode Island characteristics. The use of cherry as the primary wood is
also found on a highboy attributed to Providence, and the knee carving and claw
and ball feet appear to be by the same hand as the highboy attributed to
Grindall Rawson (1719 - 1803), illustrated and discuss in Antiques Magazine,
July 1980, "The Rawson Family of Cabinetmakers in Providence, Rhode Island," by
Eleanor Bl. Monahon, page 134, plate 1 and figure 1. Also, a related
Rhode Island foot is illustrated in John Kirk, American Chairs - Queen Anne and
Chippendale, page 53, figure 37.
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