Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy The Chipstone Foundation, Fox Point, Wis., accession no. 1962.12; photo by Gavin Ashworth Click the image to enlarge	Side chair
	Object number RIF949
	Maker Maker Unknown Maker, possibly by John Goddard, American, 1723–1785
	Dimensions 38 1/2 � 21 1/2 � 20 1/2 in. (97.79 � 54.61 � 52.07 cm)
	Date 1760–90
	Current location The Chipstone Foundation
	Geography Made in Newport, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany (primary); maple (slip seat frame); pine (glue blocks)
	Marks None
	Inscriptions "VIII," incised, on inner edge of front seat rail; "VII," incised on the underside of the slip seat frame
	Provenance John S. Walton, Inc., New York; sold to Polly Mariner Stone (1898–1995) and Stanley Stone (1896–1987), Fox Point, Wisconsin, 1962; bequeathed by Stanley Stone to The Chipstone Foundation, Fox Point, Wisconsin, 1987
	Associated names John S. Walton, Inc. Stanley Stone Polly Mariner Stone
	Construction The flat-fronted, round-backed crest rail has arched "shoulders" and centers a carved shell. Tenoned and wood-pinned to its ends are flat-fronted, round-backed, single-piece leg/stiles which are square and rearward-raking below the incurvate section above the seat. The tenons are visible on either side of the crest rail ends. Above the seat the stiles are straight, yet rearward-raking in profile. Tenoned into the crest rail is a single-piece, openwork, vasiform splat, flat in front and in back, also tenoned into the molded, single-piece shoe below. The front of the shoe overhangs slightly the inside face of the rear seat rail, to which it is attached by wood-filled fasteners. The rear seat rail is tenoned and single-wood-pinned to the rear legs. The tops of the front and side seat rails have a quarter round profile and are rabbeted to receive the slip seat; their skirts are flat-arched, their undersides bear prominent rasp marks. The serpentine side rails are tenoned and double-wood-pinned to the rear legs, and tenoned and single-wood-pinned to the front legs. The slightly bowed front rail is tenoned and single-wood-pinned to the front legs, to which are glued, inside the seat frame, two vertical glue blocks apiece. The turnedrear stretchers are doweled into the rear legs. The blocked and turned side stretchers are tenoned and wood-pinned to the rear and the front legs. The medial stretcher is doweled into the side stretchers. The front cabriole legs have rounded knees and deeply carved ankles, with deeply carved claws and talons grasping elongated ball feet. Carved knee brackets are glued to them and fixed with rosehead and other nails. The rails of the slip seat are tenoned and wood-pinned to each other. Examined by P. E. Kane and J. N. Johnson, May 16, 2014; notes compiled by T. B. Lloyd.
	Notes Probably not old.
	See also RIF1 RIF293 RIF322 RIF567 RIF749 RIF769 RIF772 RIF1390 RIF3487 RIF4279 RIF4916 RIF4918
	Bibliography Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 122–123, no. 52, ill. Stanley Stone, "Rhode Island Furniture at Chipstone, Part II," Antiques 91, no. 4 (April 1967): 509, ill.