Square-back Windsor side chair (one of a set of six)

1800-1807

Maker

John Letchworth (1759–1843)

Measurements

34 1/2 in x 19 1/2 in x 19 in

Materials

Tulip poplar* (seat), maple* (legs), oak* (crest rod), hickory* (spindles, front stretcher)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation

Accession Number

1973.393

Inscription

“I • LETCHWORTH” is branded into the underside of each chair seat. “Hart” is written faintly in pencil on five of the seat undersides.

Condition Notes

See text below for paint history

Provenance

The set of chairs was purchased from Harold C. Fitzsimmons, West Chester, Pennsylvania. He acquired it from Francis Brinton, who in turn had bought it from an unnamed West Chester family.1 The penciled name “Hart" may have been a former owner.

Comments

Each chair of this set of square-back Windsors (acc. no. 1973.393.2 is photographed) is branded by the maker, John Letchworth, who worked as a chairmaker from 1782 to 1807.  The square-back form was introduced about 1800.  By then bamboo turning, which imitated Asian bamboo, was common.  Letchworth produced particularly well-turned examples, as evidenced by these chairs.  Chair 1973.393.5 has a chalk letter, perhaps a P or an L, on the underside of chair seat.  Its purpose is not known.  It could have designated the original buyer for the set, or it might have had another shop-related purposed.

Bibliography

Margaret Berwind Schiffer, Furniture and Its Makers of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadel-phia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), pl. 67.

Evans, American Windsor Chairs, 133-34, fig 3-114.

Zimmerman, A Storied Past, 161-162.