Description:
Easy chair or wing chair surviving with its original under upholstery. The design of this easy chair was inspired by George Hepplewhite's "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide" (1794 ed.), plate 15, which was sold in Hartford by 1799. The chair descended in the Phelps family of Hadley, Massachusetts, It first belonged either to Charles Porter Phelps, Jr. (1743-1814) and Elizabeth Porter Phelps (1747-1817) in her father's mansion, or by their son, Charles Phelps, Jr. (1772-1857), who worked in Boston as a merchant before returning to Hadley in 1815 to build a neoclassical house across the street from his mother's house at Forty Acres. The chair probably dates from Phelps' time in Boston, but may have been made locally for his parents; a similar, locally-made chair (67.262), minus stretchers, was owned by Dr. Stephen West Williams of Deerfield. The chair was found in the Southeast Chamber of the Phelps-Sessions House in October 1988. The chair has a serpentine crest rail over a canted back flanked by large shaped wings; outflaring, horizontal arm supports; and is supported on a base with straight molded legs and rectilinear stretchers and its original surface. 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.
Subjects:
Textile fabrics; Linen; Mahogany Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+88.099 |
