Skip to main content
Advanced Search
Bow Back Windsor Side Chair
Bow Back Windsor Side Chair
Bow Back Windsor Side Chair

Bow Back Windsor Side Chair

Maker
Period1797 - 1815
MediumMaple, tulip poplar, and ash
Dimensions36 × 20.5 × 21.5 in. (91.4 × 52.1 × 54.6 cm)
SignedOn underside of seat, branded: "T. CAIN"
ClassificationsSeating Furniture
Credit LineGift of Mrs. J. Amory Haskell
Object number2016.511
DescriptionOne of four. The bowback side chair features bamboo-turned legs and stretchers, and nine spindles in the back. It was originally painted dark green, areas of which remain on the underside of the seat.
Curatorial RemarksMuseum loan records note that on 4 November 1931 Mrs. J. Amory Haskell lent "4 Hoop-back Windsor chairs" to the Association. The four Thomas Cain Windsors are the only such matching set in the collection. A handwritten notation next to the typed entry indicates that the loan was "Changed to a gift." Detailed searches in the museum gift records have failed to find a suitable entry to establish the date that change occurred.NotesFor many years, a group of Windsor chairs branded [T. CAIN] have mystified furniture historians, who have attributed them to an unknown maker in New England, the Delaware Valley, or South Carolina. A 21 April 1801 newspaper advertisement that appeared in the Trenton True American identifies him for the first time as a New Jersey Windsor chairmaker. It reads, "THOMAS CAIN, WINDSOR CHAIR-MAKER. Respectfully informs his friends and the public that he has removed to the shop lately occupied as a storehouse by Mr. Abraham G. Claypoole, directly opposite the Market-House in Trenton, where he continues carrying on the Windsor Chair-Making business in all its various branches. He has now on hand, a large assortment of the most fashionable chairs, which he will dispose of on reasonable terms." Thomas Cain was born in Trenton in 1776, a son of William Cain and Mary Cole. Like others of his trade, Cain also worked as a house painter at times, doing so at the New Jersey State House in 1812. By the 1820s, he had entered into a soap and candle manufacturing business with his son. Thomas Cain worked as a chairmaker in Trenton for about twenty-five years. He died in Trenton on 18 March 1843, and was interred in the churchyard of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in that city.
Collections