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Banister-back side chair

Object number

RIF5986

Maker

Maker Unknown

Dimensions

45 × 20 1/4 × 14 3/4 in. (114.3 × 51.44 × 37.47 cm)

Date

1730–80

Current location

Private collection

Geography

Made in Rhode Island
(view a map of Rhode Island)

Medium

Maple (stretchers, rear posts, lower back rail, spindles, and crest); ring porous wood(?) (side seat rails)

Marks

None

Inscriptions

None

Style

William and Mary, Vernacular

Provenance

Charitable Baptist Society of the First Baptist Church in America, Providence, Rhode Island; consigned to Northeast Auctions, Hampton, New Hampshire (sale held Manchester, New Hampshire), August 7–8, 1993, lot 566 (right); sold to Judith Herdeg and John A. Herdeg, Mendenhall, Pennsylvania

Associated names

Charitable Baptist Society of the First Baptist Church in America
Northeast Auctions

Construction

The double-arched crest rail has a beaded front top edge and is tenoned into its flanking stiles, each joint showing one wood pin in the back only. The ends of the crest rail back are deeply chamfered. Three split banisters below, flat in front and rounded in back, match the turnings of the stiles and are tenoned into the underside of the crest rail and the top of the lower rail, which is flat in front, has a double-serpentine skirt, and is deeply chamfered at the ends where it is tenoned into the stiles. The rush-covered seat rails are doweled into the legs, as are the turned front stretchers, the pairs of plain side stretchers, and the plain single rear stretcher. Examined by P. E. Kane and J. N. Johnson, April 21, 2014; notes compiled by T. B. Lloyd.

Bibliography

Northeast Auctions, Hampton, N.H., Important Americana and Folk Art, sale cat. (August 7–8, 1993), 37, lot 566 (right).
Patricia E. Kane et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016), 185n4.