A Queen Anne Walnut Compass-Seat Open Armchair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1755

Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758, October 10, 1999–January 2, 2000, p. 172, no. 157, illustrated

Among the rarest and most magnificent examples of the Queen Anne aesthetic in Philadelphia, this armchair bears additional important as stemming from the only set of eighteenth-century American Queen Anne armchairs in existence today. The armchair descended in the family of Mrs. George Fairman Mullen, nee Eleanor Thomson (1902-2001), who gave it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1964. She stated in a June 9, 1964 letter to the museum curator that “the chair was used by Washington and Lafayette when they came to tea in my ancestors’ home in old Philadelphia” where, “on one occasion Washington scratched his initials in a window pane.”¹The armchair stems from a set of at least eight armchairs, with five others from the set known: two at Winterthur Museum (numbers III and VIII), one in a private collection that sold at Christie's, New York, Important Americana, January 21, 2022, sale 19907, lot 358 (number IIII), one in a private collection that sold in these rooms, Important Americana, October 7, 2006, sale 8209, lot 318 (number V), and one location unknown with a history in the Biddle family of Philadelphia published in 1983 as the property of David Stockwell.² Comparable in proportion, meticulously designed and extravagantly constructed of choice highly figured walnut, the chairs in the set display the distinctive characteristics of an unusual tall height, rounded stiles laminated on both the lower and upper portions; wrought iron braces reinforcing the rear juncture of the crest rail and the stiles; tapering shells; the use of solid figured walnut for the splat; deeply scrolling volutes on the ears and knee returns; and trifid feet with extra cyma shaping of the curve. The set undoubtedly represents a special commission by an original owner of significant prominence, perhaps an institution in Colonial Philadelphia.

This armchair follows the design of the others in the set and displays the distinctive wrought iron braces on the crest. The latter may have been installed originally or could represent an early repair.³ The height of 45 ½” of the chairs in the set is 3 inches taller than other contemporary examples of the form. The toolmarks on the seat of this chair indicate that the early, if not original, upholstery treatment was leather. This armchair differs from the others in several respects. It is not numbered like the other surviving examples. Its seat rails have integral rims at the front and sides which represent a time-consuming method that presented a seamless exterior. The other chairs have applied seat rims. This chair has a slip-seat frame made of yellow pine. The others have seat rails, seat frames and applied seat rail lips crafted from the same block of walnut with rough kerf tool markings on the inside lip of the seat rail and the presence of holes in the seat frame sides that correspond to the side seat rails. When this chair sold in 2016, it was surmised that these differences could indicate that it was made slightly out of sequence. The differences could also be explained by cariation in workmanship and practice within one or multiple shops.

Certain details displayed on the armchairs are found on other examples of Philadelphia furniture from the period. The distinctive trifid feet with flush center panels, recessed side panels, and cyma shaping at the outer edge are known on chairs attributed to a shop identified by Alan Miller as “the Wistar armchair shop,” case pieces attributed to the Clifton-Carteret shop, chairs made by Solomon Fussell for Benjamin Franklin, and furniture from other shops.⁴ The tapering shells and distinctive volutes are featured on chairs with both similar and variant trifid feet, including examples made in the Wistar armchair shop and others associated with the carver Nicholas Bernard (d. 1789) and shop of Samuel Harding (d. 1758).⁵

¹ Letter, Mrs. G. Fairman Mullen, 9 June 1964, object file for 1964.212.1, American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

² Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York: Macmillan Co., 1952): no 27, Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E. Kane, American Art: 1750-1800 Towards Independence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 1976): p. 146, no. 92, and John Walker, Experts Choice: 1000 Years of the Art Trade (New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1983, p. 129.

³ Alan Miller, “Flux in Design and Method in Early Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Furniture,” American Furniture 2014, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Hanover and London: The Chipstone Foundation, 2014): p. 66.

⁴ See ibid, p. 64, fig. 46. See cataloging for this armchair in Christie's, New York, American Furniture, Folk Art and Silver, January 22, 2016, sale 11985, lot 67; Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture (New York, 1993): p. 28; Christie’s New York, 24 January 2014, lot 118; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture (New York, 1985): pp. 86-7, cat. 42; Jack L. Lindsey, Worldly Goods (Philadelphia, 1999): pp. 102, 169, fig. 161, no. 132; Skinner, Boston, 5 June 2005, lot 81; Downs, nos. 192 and 324.

⁵ See Miller, pp. 64, 74, figs. 47 and 61; Christie’s, New York, 24 January 2014, lot 132; Christie’s, New York, Philadelphia Splendor: The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Max R. Zaitz, 22 January 2016, lot 159.