Bow-back Windsor side chair

1790-1805

Measurements

37-3/8 in x 18 in x 21-1/2 in

Materials

Oak* bow, hickory* spindles, tulip poplar* seat, maple* legs and stretchers

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, The David Wilson Mansion, Inc.

Accession Number

1971.612

Condition Notes

The chair was repainted in 2022

Provenance

Bequest of Dr. and Mrs. J. Newberry Reynolds to The David Wilson Mansion, Inc., in 1942.

Comments

The bowed hoop of this Windsor side chair encloses nine spindles with slight swellings near the bottom.  The middle three spindles pierce the hoop, which has a flat face with scratch-beads at each edge.  The carved shield-shaped has four baluster turned legs socketed into it.  The balusters are particularly bold, as are the swelled turnings in the middle of each of the H stretchers.

When given to Winterthur, the chair had been stripped of all paint.  The museum painted it a pea green in the early 1980s.  Historic Odessa repainted it a darker green in 2022.  That darker color was derived in part from evidence of such paint still on a stretcher socketed into the right front leg (see image).