Square-back Windsor armchair

1810-1820

Measurements

33-1/4 in x 20-1/2 in x 22-1/8 in

Materials

Tulip poplar (seat), maple (posts, legs, and stretchers), oak (rods), hickory (spindles)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of H. Rodney Sharp

Accession Number

1959.3647

Condition Notes

The chair has been stripped of its paint.

Provenance

Ex coll. H. Rodney Sharp

Comments

This square-back armchair, also called a double rod back for the two horizontal rods, has distinctive bamboo turnings--they are pronounced or even swollen at the incised rings.  Windsor chair historian Nancy G. Evans associates a similar chair with the Susquehanna Valley (see American Windsor Chairs, 138, fig. 3-123), which seems to be a reasonable place of origin for this chair.  The legs are not round-tenoned through the seat, although the arm supports and rear posts are.  Each is firmly wedged in place.  The seat has a modest shied shape.  The chair has lost all of its paint.