Tablet-top rocking Windsor armchair

1820-1835

Measurements

38-3/4 in x 19-3/4 in x 30-1/2 in

Materials

Tulip poplar (seat), hickory (spindles), oak (rockers), maple (all other woods)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of Scott T. Swank

Accession Number

1987.134

Inscription

"1817" is painted in gold on the front of the crest.  A paper label pasted onto the underside of the seat is printed, "C. W. UNGER / Antiques, Rare Books, Prints, [missing] / POTTSVILLE, PENNSY[LVANIA]."

Condition Notes

Multiple layers of paint have worn and are peeling off the chair.

Comments

This tablet-top, so-called for the rectangular crest, Windsor, also called a fan-back for the multiple spindles across the back, has faint bamboo turnings on the legs and spindles under the arms only.  The rear posts and the arm supports, which often carry such decoration, are plain.  The seat is rounded and dished.  The legs have front and rear stretchers only, because the rockers perform the same function on the sides.  The rockers attach to the outsides of the feet and are held in place with round-headed iron bolts and square nuts embedded in the wood of the feet.  The rockers have round drops or stops on the undersides at the back.

This simple chair displays relatively few clues to where it might have been made.  Given the tablet crest, the chair was likely made after about 1820.  The 1817 date on the face of the crest was likely painted years later, probably in commemoration of some family event.  Whether it represents an original paint coating or a later painting campaign is not known.