Rare Pair of Queen Anne Shell-Carved Walnut Compass-Seat Side Chairs, Boston, Massachusetts, Circa 1765

John Walton, Connecticut;
Property of a Gentleman;
Sotheby’s, Important Americana, January 27, 1990, sale 5968, lot 1220;
A. Carter Pottash, New York;
Sotheby’s, Important Americana, October 13, 2000, sale 7521, lot 249;
Private New York collection;
Sotheby’s, Important Americana, January 20, 21, and 23, 2005, sale 8053, lot 1171.

A chair that was originally owned by the Whipple family of Boston and likely from the same set as these chairs is illustrated in Esther Singleton, The Furniture of Our Forefathers, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913), p. 337.  A side chair with an identical splat pattern can be found in one of the homes belonging to Historic New England and is pictured in Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, The Colonial Era, (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin, 1984), pp. 379-81, no. 108 (acc. no. 1939.359).