Side Chair
Period1700 - 1725
MediumMaple, and oak
Dimensions47.75 × 18 × 15 in. (121.3 × 45.7 × 38.1 cm)
ClassificationsSeating Furniture
Credit LineGift of Mrs. William C. Riker, 1965
Object number1991.638
DescriptionThis leather upholstered side chair includes an intricately carved crest rail with a central foliate spray flanked by two mirror image C-scrolls. The baluster and column turned rear stiles, topped with ball and nipple finials, rake back below the seat rails. The two front block and baluster turned posts and plain rear legs are braced with a double ball and reel turned front stretcher and plain rectangular side and rear stretchers. The arch top back panel and seat have been reupholstered with modern brown leather held in place by two rows of spaced brass upholstery nails.Curatorial RemarksIt has long been recognized that in the first four or five decades of the eighteenth century the furniture industry in Boston, Massachusetts, produced large quantities of chairs that were shipped to other markets up and down the east coast of America. This chair falls into that category. The late Benno M. Forman characterized leather upholstered chairs with carved crest rails made in Boston between 1700 and 1725 as follows, "the comparison of the relatively large number of surviving chairs of this type reveals little generic difference among them, although they vary in details. The materials used in them are uniformly the same: maple for the crest rail, stiles, legs, and stretchers; maple or oak in the back and seat rails; russia or neat leather, depending on price and availability, for the upholstery. Carving on the crest rails and stretchers is of excellent quality, but rarely superb; the back sides are uniformly rough. . . . the balusters are seldom painstakingly well-proportioned and the turning is seldom executed with refinement. In short, the standardized Boston chairs are strictly the output of professional chair-frame shops, usually working at the behest of the upholsterer who commissioned frames and sold finished chairs, and represent a high level of competence but rarely more than the standard of professional production demanded." The consumer had a number of options available when purchasing Boston chairs of this type. They came with carved tops or plain, with carved front stretchers or turned, and with varying grades of leather upholstery. The Association's example combines the more expensive carved crest rail with the less expensive turned front stretcher. For further Forman commentary on chairs of this type, see Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture: 1630 - 1730 (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), 306 - 316.
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