Description:
Chippendale easy chair or wing chair with front cabriole legs ending in ball and claw feet and turned, compressed side stretchers. Claw feet were not popular until after the middle of the eighteenth century; this foot was used interchangeably with the earlier pad foot, especially since the turned pad foot was less expensive than the claw foot. These were often the most comfortable chairs in the house, often reserved for invalids, pregnant women, or the elderly. Since the wings captured heat from the fireplace, they were commonly used in bedrooms of the well-to-do. The first American easy chairs appeared during the William and Mary period (1690-1720); the Queen Anne style (1720-1755) was replaced by the Chippendale period (1755-1790), the heyday of American easy chairs. The chair is upholstered in Indian export fabric (silk tambour embroidery on silk), dating to the second half of the eighteenth century. The textile, posibly made in Gujurat, reflects the western vogue for Eastern fabrics, with sparse, colorful floral designs set against a light colored ground. The material, either purchased by museum founder Helen Geier Flynt (1895-1986) or the Lo Nano firm, was used by the firm to recover the chair in the 1950s.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Embroidery; Mahogany; polychrome; Silk Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+54.004.12 |
