Bow-back Windsor armchair

1785-1800

Measurements

37 5/8 in x 21 1/4 in x 17 1/4 in

Materials

Tulip poplar (seat), oak* (bow), hickory* (spindles), cherry* (arms and arm supports), maple* (legs), and ash* (medial stretcher)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of Sara Corbit Reese Pryor

Accession Number

1974.55

Inscription

“Wm. CORBIT HOUSE / ODESSA, DELAWARE – 1772” is stamped into a metal tag applied to the underside of the seat.

Condition Notes

The left arm is repaired at the join to the back hoop and where the arm support tenons into the seat.

Provenance

The chair descended in the Corbit family to Daniel Wheeler Corbit (1843–1922), to Sara Corbit Levis (1871–1952), to Harriet Hurd Curtis (1903-1971), mother of the donor.

Comments

This unmarked Windsor armchair descended in the Corbit family and, as a later plaque attests, was likely owned originally by William Corbit.  Because few Windsor chairmakers worked in Delaware when this chair was made, it likely originated in Philadelphia or environs.  The mix of woods includes arms made of cherry, a less expensive substitute for mahogany, which may indicate an origin outside of Philadelphia.  All of the turnings are bamboo-shaped, a stylish innovation in Windsors that imitated exotic Asian seating made of real bamboo.  The nine spindles spaced across the back envelop the sitter. Thin brown paint on the chair appears to be the only layer present, but the chair may have been stripped of earlier paint before the current color was applied.

Bibliography

Sweeney, Grandeur, 112.

Sweeney, “Corbit-Sharp House,” 877, pl. II.

Zimmerman, A Storied Past, 160.