Lot 847
  • 847

A VERY RARE WILLIAM AND MARY TURNED AND GREEN-PAINTED BANISTER-BACK 'MUSHROOM' ARMCHAIR, PROBABLY NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, CIRCA 1740 |

Estimate
5,000 - 8,000 USD
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Description

  • Height 46 1/2 in.; 118.1 cm.
appears to retain its original surface; feet replaced.

Provenance

Mary Allis, Fairfield, Connecticut, June 1973;
Vogel Collection no. 178.

Literature

Wendell D. Garrett, “Living with antiques: The Connecticut home of Mary Allis,” Magazine Antiques, vol. 96, no. 5, November 1969, p. 758.

Condition

Overall fine condition. Wear and losses to the painted surface commensurate with age and use. Bottom 4 inches replaced. Width: 25 in.; Depth: 16 1/2 in.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

This impressive ‘Great Chair’ was likely made in Newport, Rhode Island. Since Joseph Ott’s article, “A Group of Rhode Island Banister-Back Chairs” in Magazine Antiques, vol 125, no. 5, May 1984, p. 1171, chairs with characteristic double demilune crests have been attributed to Little Compton, Rhode Island based upon the recovered histories of several of the chairs. New research by Dennis Carr and Patricia Kane have demonstrated, however, that this crest was placed on chairs made likely throughout the Rhode Island colony (see Patricia E. Kane; with Dennis Carr, Nancy Goyne Evans, Jennifer N. Johnson, Gary R. Sullivan, Art & Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016), pp. 25, 184-187,  fig. 13, nos. 20, 21.) The refinement of this armchair’s turnings and proportions, as well as its visual relationship to an armchair in the Newport Historical Society collection that descended through the Peckham family of Newport, strongly suggests that the currently offered lot was made in an urban chairmaking shop, likely Newport. Further supporting this reasoning are the presence of greatly enlarged ‘mushroom’ pommels and complexly turned arms installed at a downward sloping angle.  As Erik K. Gronning, Joshua W. Lane, and Robert F. Trent first discussed in “Dutch Joinery in 17th Century Windsor, Connecticut,” Maine Antique Digest, August 2007, vol. 35, no. 8, p. 13-D, these pommels and slanted arms appear first in Newport rather than New London County, Connecticut, as they have historically been attributed. An armchair likely from the same chairmaking shop is in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection (acc. no. 1930.2608 and RIF4900).