4-slat rocking side chair

1880-1940

Measurements

39-1/2 in x 19 in x 29-1/4 in

Materials

Walnut; rush seat

Credit Line

Gift of Hugh Plumb

Accession Number

2018.9

Condition Notes

A few strands of rush have broken.

Provenance

The donor is a great grandson of H. Rodney Sharp, in whose collection the chair formerly resided.

Comments

Despite resemblances to 18th and early 19th century turned slat-back chairs, several features of this rocker indicate its late date of manufacture.  It is made of walnut, a premium wood that turned chairmakers seldom, if ever, used.  Instead, they favored less expensive woods like maple that were often painted.  The slat shapes on this chair are also atypical—simply unknown in examples of the period.  Similarly, the turned features of the four posts and the front stretcher are unknown in the period.  They were turned to suggest bamboo, which they do, but double rings separate the bamboo sections rather than swellings and gouges that define bamboo turnings of the period.  Last, the large ovoid finials do not have direct counterparts.

These departures from period practices, which nonetheless evoke the past, represent Colonial Revival practices.