Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy Northeast Auctions, Hampton and Portsmouth, N.H. Click the image to enlarge	Side chair
	Object number RIF780
	Maker Maker Unknown
	Dimensions Height: 41 1/2 in. (105.41 cm) Width: 20 1/2 in. (52.07 cm) Height to seat rail: 17 3/4 in. (45.085 cm)
	Date 1740–60
	Current location Unknown
	Geography Probably made in Massachusetts, formerly said to have been made in Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Walnut (primary); white pine (front corner blocks); maple (seat frame)
	Marks None
	Inscriptions "I," incised, on slip seat frame; "IIII," incised, on chair rail
	Provenance Mr. and Mrs. Dudley I. Catzen, by 1965. Northeast Auctions, Hampton and Portsmouth, New Hampshire (sale held Manchester, New Hampshire), August 4–6, 2006, lot 1795
	Associated names Northeast Auctions Dudley I. Catzen Mrs. Dudley I. Catzen
	Construction The flat-fronted, slightly incurvate crest rail has double-arched shoulders centering a scroll-carved reserve, is rounded at the back and attached to the flat-fronted, round-backed stiles, serpentine in shape and profile, by mortise and tenon joints, each showing one wood pin. The incurvate portions of the lower stiles are separate pieces. The vasiform splat is serpentine in profile, tenoned into the bottom of the crest rail and the top of the molded, one-piece shoe, which is nailed with brads to the rear seat rail below, and overhangs the seat. The stiles are square where they meet the rear seat rail in mortise and tenon joints, showing one wood pin apiece, and rounded below, where the rear stretcher is doweled into them. The front faces of the rear legs are flattened where the side stretchers meet them in mortise and tenon joints, showing one wood pin apiece. The rear legs end in stylized slipper feet. The rabbeted, serpentine, flat-skirted seat rails meet the rear and front legs in mortise and tenon joints having one wood pin apiece. At each of the corners of the seat frame are later diagonal blocks glued and nailed to the rails. The flat, serpentine side and medial stretchers have rounded outside and square inside edges and are joined to each other with mortise and tenon joints without wood pins, and to their respective front and back legs with similar joints having one wood pin apiece. On the edge of each knee bracket is a bead which continues into a C-scroll on the edges of the front legs, whose knees are decorated with a carved lambrequin panel. The front slipper feet have prominent chisel marks on their chamfered underside. Examined by P.E. Kane and M. Taradash, July 29, 2006; notes compiled by T.B. Lloyd
	See also RIF2507
	Bibliography Joseph K. Ott, The John Brown House Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture, exh. cat. (Providence: The Rhode Island Historical Society, 1965), 6–7, no. 5. Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, N.H., 2006 Americana Auction, sale cat. (August 4–6, 2006), 279, lot 1795, ill. John T. Kirk, American Chairs: Queen Anne and Chippendale (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 128, fig. 159.