Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's, New York Click the image to enlarge	Side chairs, pair
	Object number RIF427
	Maker Maker Unknown
	Date 1780–1800
	Current location Private Collection
	Geography Made in Newport, Rhode Island, or made in Providence, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany (primary); maple (side and front seat rails)
	Provenance Constance Pember Godfrey (1929 - 2014) and Dudley J. Godfrey, Jr. (1926 - 2007), Milwaukee, by 1965; consigned by the Dudley and Constance Godfrey Foundation, Milwaukee, to Sotheby's, New York, January 18–21, 2018, lot 799
	Associated names Constance Pember Godfrey Dudley J. Godfrey, Jr. Dudley and Constance Godfrey Foundation Sotheby's
	Construction The stiles are flat in front, rounded in back, square, rearward and inward-raking below the seat. They are tenoned and wood-pinned to the ends of the serpentine splat, which is flat in front, has slightly rounded edges in back, ends in scroll-carved ears and centers an arched, incised, and dot-punched reserve. The single-piece openwork, scroll-carved splat is tenoned into the rear seat rail, which is tenoned, with single wood pins, into the leg/stiles. The splat sits behind a single-piece molded shoe nailed to the top of the rear seat rail. The overupholstered side rails are tenoned and wood-pinned to the rear legs/stiles and the front rail. The rear stretcher is flush with the back face of the rear legs, to which it is tenoned and wood-pinned. The side stretchers, flush with the outside faces of the front and rear legs, are tenoned and wood-pinned to them. The medial stretcher meets the side stretchers in half-dovetail joints. The front legs are chamfered at their inside corners and stop-fluted on their outside faces. There are shadows of blocks in the front corners of the overupholstered seat frame. Examined by P. E. Kane and J. N. Johnson, May 23, 2014; notes compiled by T. B. Lloyd.
	See also RIF235 RIF584 RIF843 RIF1312 RIF1415 RIF1440 RIF1449 RIF1452 RIF2037 RIF2051 RIF2579 RIF2886 RIF3039 RIF3328 RIF3683 RIF3684 RIF3686 RIF3798 RIF4004 RIF4038 RIF4223 RIF4380 RIF4381 RIF4383 RIF4572 RIF4778 RIF4810 RIF4874 RIF4990 RIF5568 RIF5791 RIF6573 RIF6623
	Bibliography Joseph K. Ott, The John Brown House Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture, exh. cat. (Providence: The Rhode Island Historical Society, 1965), 12–13, no. 12, ill. Sotheby's, New York, Important Americana, sale cat. (January 18–21, 2018), vol. 2, p. 75, lot 799, ill. Clifford P. Monahon, "John Brown House Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture," Rhode Island History 24, no. 2 (April 1965): 34, ill. Lita Solis-Cohen, "Americana at Sotheby's," Maine Antique Digest (March 2018): 17-E, ill.