Grain-painted Queen Anne Side Chair, New England, late 18th century.

Grain-painted Queen Anne Side Chair,
New England, late 18th century.
Serpentine crest rail with flat-topped yoke and spurred ends curving slightly beyond the shaped continuous stiles, which flank a solid vasiform splat whose tapering walls form tight scrolls at shoulder, the trapezoidal rush seat frame with exposed front corners is raised on baluster-turned and blocked forelegs terminating in carved Spanish feet, all legs joined with pinned stretchers and a spindle-turned front rail, later paint resembling rosewood grain over an earlier rust-colored surface, (repairs to crest), 48cm wide, 48cm deep, 101cm high (19 1/2in wide, 19 1/2in deep, 40 5/8in high). Seat ht. 17 in.
Provenance
American Furniture & Decorative Arts, Skinner Sale No. 2524B, Boston, Massachusetts (7 November 2010), Lot 437. Collection of Jim & Bernice Miller, Appleton, Wisconsin.

Literature
For a similar chair with a compass seat, see Barry A. Greenlaw, New England Furniture at Williamsburg (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1974), cat. no. 42. A pair identical to the Virginia example also appears in Israel Sack, Brochure Number Nine (New York, New York: May 1962), no. 483.