Set of Four Federal Mahogany Upholstered Side Chairs, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,...

Set of Four Federal Mahogany Upholstered Side Chairs,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, c. 1810.
Square-back crest over pierced racquet-shaped splat between tapering columns, carved with beaded edges and relief decoration including rosettes, bellflowers, darts, and foliage, all between two shaped stiles continuing to out-swept rear legs below the over-upholstered seat, whose serpentine front rail is raised on string-inlaid tapered legs, the legs joined with box stretchers, 50cm wide, 50cm deep, 91cm high (20in wide, 20in deep, 36in high). Seat ht. 18 in.
Provenance
The collection of Eric van Rooy.
Kyser-Hollingsworth, Washington, DC, 2 November 2002.

Literature
For a Maryland example with the same splat pattern in the collection of Winterthur Museum (acc. no. 57.772.1, 2), see Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (New York: Viking Press, 1966), cat. no. 105. Montgomery identifies the source of the pattern in Thomas Sheraton, "Backs for Parlour Chairs," Appendix to the Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book (London: T. Bensley, 1793), plate 28.