Very Fine and Rare William and Mary Walnut Wainscot Armchair, Chester County, Pennsylvania, Circa 1735

With its broad proportions, pierced and scalloped crest rail, arched back panel, and elaborate turned components, this Wainscot armchair is one of the greatest surviving examples of its form. It was made in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where makers incorporated a mixture of Welsh, Dutch and Germanic traditions into their furniture designs. Benno Forman discusses Chester County chairs of this type in American Seating Furniture, 1630-1730 (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988): 140. He notes that the pierced and scalloped crest rail taking the shape of a pair of inverted single quotation marks can be traced to southern Lancashire and Cheshire, England, where numerous chairs with related crest rails survive.¹

^A Wainscot armchair of similar form and proportion was formerly in the collection of Titus C. Geesey and included in Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758 exhibition held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.² Another made of red oak with a similar crest rail has a history of ownership in the Pennock family of Chester County.³

¹ Benno Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630-1730 (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988): fig. 68, p. 139.

² Jack L. Lindsey in Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999): fig. 143, p. 94 and no. 144, p. 171.

³ See Forman, fig. 69, p. 140. Forman notes that this chair is in a private collection.