Important and Exceptional Redddish Brown-Painted Scroll-Carved Comb-Back Knuckled Windsor Armchair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Circa 1775

H.L. Chalfant Antiques, West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Charles Santore, The Windsor Style in America: Volume II, A Continuing Pictorial Study of the History and Regional Characteristics of the Most Popular Furniture Form of Eighteenth-Century America, 1730-1830, (Philadelphia, PA: Running Press, 1987), pp. cover, 27 and 32-3, nos. 16 and 16A, pl. III;

Charles Santore, The Windsor Style, (New York: Hirschl & Adler Folk, 1987).

"I believe it should be considered a masterpiece of its period and of its type. So often one can point up excellent details of a particular chair, while other parts can be criticized. Throughout this chair, however, not only are all the individual parts virtually perfect, but they also fit together in perfect harmony. For example, the slightly longer cylinder of the legs supporting a slightly shorter baluster emphasizes the leg splay; and the slightly elongated blunt-arrow feet lift the chair as though on toes. Did the chairmaker intentionally set out to create a perfect Windsor, or did he do it by chance and instinct? I do not know. There is no theory of perfect Windsor chairmaking; there is only the practice of chairmaking. And in my experience with hundreds of comb-back armchairs and thousands of Windsors, I have never seen Windsor chairmaking practiced better than in this chair." - Charles Santore, 1987.