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Lot Essay
Adorned with bold shells and distinctive petal carving, these chairs exemplify the celebrated craftsmanship of colonial Newport. With crests and stiles fashioned in the late baroque manner favored during the Queen Anne era, the chairs are rare survivals documenting the emerging Chippendale taste in mid-eighteenth century Newport.
Displaying identical decorative elements and idiosyncratic construction features, these chairs were made en suite with a chair in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 4) and three chairs in a private collection. All bear two schemes of numerical identification that confirm their production as part of the same larger set. Bearing its original slip-seat frame, the chair in lot 95 is inscribed III on both the interior rail of the chair and the seat frame and the chair in lot 96 is similarly inscribed II and IX (or XI). The others are similarly marked without any repetitions and as the numeral XIIII on the slip-seat of the chair at the Metropolitan Museum indicates were part of a set of at least fourteen chairs. Presumably an aid for the assembly of the chairs' backs, a separate numbering scheme is evident on the rear facades of the chairs' crests, splats, shoes and rear seat rails. The chair in lot 95 bears a small X on each of these parts and the chair in lot 96 bears the number I (Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Queen Anne and Chippendale (New Yok,k 1985), cat. 9, Sotheby's New York, January 26 and 28, 1984, lot 865; Sotheby's New York, The Collection of Doris and Richard M. Seidlitz, January 30, 1988, lot 1772; Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, New Jersey, 1984), pl. 21; see below for the specific numerals on the other known chairs from the same set).
Three additional chairs bear seemingly identical design and may be part of the same set. Found on case pieces and tables made by or attributed to John Townsend (1733-1809) and John Goddard (1723-1785), the carved cluster of petals on the knees is a feature rarely found on chairs. The extra knee carving distinguishes this set of chairs as a costlier alternative to similar chairs with unadorned knees (three of the chairs with the same knee carving are cited in Heckscher, p.44; for a pair of chairs of similar design but lacking the knee carving, see Christie's New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27-28, 1995, lot 1089).
THE SCHOOL OF JOB TOWNSEND, SR.
The well-documented work of John Townsend and John Goddard illustrate divergent traditions favored by the two major cabinetmaking schools producing high-style furniture in mid-eighteenth century Newport. Closely related but not identical to John Goddard's work, the chairs' carved knees and ball-and-claw feet indicate that they were made by Goddard or a woodworker trained in the same school established by the master craftsman, Job Townsend, Sr. (1699-1765). With a small number of stop-fluted petals arranged in an elongated cluster, the chairs' knee carving resembles the lower clusters found on John Goddard's tables, such as the tea table he made for Jabez Bowen in 1763 (figs. 2 and 3). Such characteristics contrast with the work of John Townsend, who was trained in the competing cabinetmaking school established by his father, Christopher Townsend (1701-1787). Carving similar designs on the knees of tables and high chests, John Townsend employed a greater number of more vertically compressed petals that extend to the edge of the legs. Further demonstrating the preferences of John Goddard, the chairs' ball-and-claw feet are composed of softly modulated knuckles with those on the rear talon particularly bulbous, a squat ball and a flat area between tendons (fig. 5). John Townsend's feet, however, feature angular knuckles with no pronounced knuckles on the rear talons, a taller ball and a convex area between tendons (Moses, pp. 210-211; for examples illustrating the different preferences of each school, see Moses, frontispiece, figs. 1.28, 1.31, 3.34-38, 3.73-75, 3.99-100, 5.10-12, pl. 8).
With subtle details of the carving different from and not unique to the known work of John Goddard, the chairs may have been made by his master and father-in-law, Job Townsend, Sr. or by a fellow apprentice. The chairs' knee carving lacks the extended central petal seen on the Bowen tea table (figs. 2 and 3) and as Michael Moses demonstrates, similar ball-and-claw feet adorn furniture not attributed to Goddard. In addition to Job Townsend, Sr., other furniture makers trained in the same school who were old enough to produce such chairs in the 1750s or early 1760s include Job's sons, Job Townsend, Jr. (1726-1778) and Edmund Townsend (1736-1811). Preventing an object-based comparison, the few surviving forms documented to these individuals are case pieces that lack carved knees and ball-and-claw feet. However, as the carved shells on these case pieces indicate, all were accomplished carvers and Job Townsend, Jr.'s account book includes a 1762 entry for a bedstead with "claw feet" (Moses, p.211; Job Townsend, Jr., Account Book, 1750-1778, Newport Historical Society, p. 75).
THE WINTHROP FAMILY OF NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT
Inherited by descendants of the Winthrop and Folsom families, the chairs may have been made for John Still Winthrop (1720-1776) of New London, Connecticut, a direct ancestor of the present owners (fig. 8). While other ancestors of the family hail from Vermont, Maine and New York, the Winthrop family with its ties to Newport stands as the most likely line in which the chairs descended in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Financially prosperous, the Winthrop family was allied with the political elite of early New England. John Still Winthrop was the great-great grandson of Governor John Winthrop (1588-1649) who led the Puritan migration in 1630 on board the Arabella where he delivered his famous sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity" in which he proclaimed, "we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill." The son of John Winthrop, F.R.S., John Still Winthrop graduated from Yale College in 1737 and soon after joined his father, who had been living in England since the younger John was a child. After his father's death in 1747, John Still returned to America and by way of Nantucket and Newport settled on his family's homestead in New London. In 1750, he married Jane Borland (1732-1760) and soon after began building his mansion at the head of Winthrop's Cove in New London. Coinciding with the chairs' production, these events may have led to the commission of such fashionable furniture. After his wife's death, John Still married Elizabeth (Shirreff) Hay (1724-1793), the widow of Captain John Hay. Besides New London's proximity to Newport, John Still had ties to the port city through the marriage of his sister, Mary to Joseph Wanton (1705-1780) of Newport, the last colonial Governor of Rhode Island. Also, as a surviving letter from John Still to Reverend Ezra Stiles of Newport indicates, John Still who inherited his great-great grandfather's writings lent his copy of John Winthrop's "The History of New England" to Stiles in 1767. In this letter, John Still requested that Stiles take good care of the manuscripts and in closing noted, "with my compliments to yor fire side and all friends at Newport." Throughout his life, John Still managed his family's large real estate holdings and upon his death in 1776, left an estate worth almost L10,000 (Mayo, The Winthrop Family in America (Boston, 1948), pp. 154-164; Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York, 1901), vol. 1, p. 66).
Along this line of descent, the chairs would have been passed down to Benjamin Winthrop (1762-1844), John Still's eldest son by his second marriage. A prosperous New York merchant, Benjamin married Judith Stuyvesant, a direct descendant of Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New York. Their daughter, Margaret Cornelia (1801-1863) married the Honorable George Folsom (1802-1869) of Maine and New York. Graduating from Harvard in 1822, Folsom was a successful lawyer in Massachusetts before moving to New York in 1840. In addition to pursuing literary and antiquarian interests, he served in the state senate and was appointed minister to Holland by President Taylor (Mayo, pp. 219-222; Dingwell, Jr., Genealogy of the Folsom Family, 3 vols. (The Folsom Family Association of America, 1981), vol. 2, p. 587).
Traced to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the family histories of the other known chairs from the same set diverge from each other and the Winthrop-Folsom line and suggest the set was dispersed among distant relations or non-family members in the eighteenth century. The chair at the Metropolitan Museum has been traced to Sarah Lyon (1774-1843) of Newport who married Aaron Fisher Dyer (1769-1822) in 1795. A possible link to the Winthrop family is through Aaron's father Joseph (b. 1735) and John Still Winthrop's second wife, Elizabeth Shirreff. Though the genealogical record is unclear, Joseph and Elizabeth may have been the individuals of the same names who were both grandchildren of Daniel Shirreff (1658-1737), making them first cousins. Two of the chairs in a private collection are known to have descended through three generations of Charles Morris Smiths of Providence. The first Charles Morris Smith (b. 1838) was the grandson of Amos Denison Smith of Groton, Connecticut, who may have had ties to the Winthrop family through John Still Winthrop's ownership of a large farm in Groton (Heckscher, p. 44; Dyer Bible Records, Newport Historical Society; Mayo, p. 162).
The chairs from the same set are inscribed as follows: On the interior of the seat rails, the chair at the Metropolitan Museum is marked I (with XIIII on the slip-seat frame) and the three chairs in a private collection are marked VIII, IIII and XII. On the chairs' crests, splats, shoes and rear rails, the chair at the Metropolitan Museum is marked XII and the three chairs in a private collection are marked XI, VIII and VI respectively.
Displaying identical decorative elements and idiosyncratic construction features, these chairs were made en suite with a chair in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig. 4) and three chairs in a private collection. All bear two schemes of numerical identification that confirm their production as part of the same larger set. Bearing its original slip-seat frame, the chair in lot 95 is inscribed III on both the interior rail of the chair and the seat frame and the chair in lot 96 is similarly inscribed II and IX (or XI). The others are similarly marked without any repetitions and as the numeral XIIII on the slip-seat of the chair at the Metropolitan Museum indicates were part of a set of at least fourteen chairs. Presumably an aid for the assembly of the chairs' backs, a separate numbering scheme is evident on the rear facades of the chairs' crests, splats, shoes and rear seat rails. The chair in lot 95 bears a small X on each of these parts and the chair in lot 96 bears the number I (Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Queen Anne and Chippendale (New Yok,k 1985), cat. 9, Sotheby's New York, January 26 and 28, 1984, lot 865; Sotheby's New York, The Collection of Doris and Richard M. Seidlitz, January 30, 1988, lot 1772; Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, New Jersey, 1984), pl. 21; see below for the specific numerals on the other known chairs from the same set).
Three additional chairs bear seemingly identical design and may be part of the same set. Found on case pieces and tables made by or attributed to John Townsend (1733-1809) and John Goddard (1723-1785), the carved cluster of petals on the knees is a feature rarely found on chairs. The extra knee carving distinguishes this set of chairs as a costlier alternative to similar chairs with unadorned knees (three of the chairs with the same knee carving are cited in Heckscher, p.44; for a pair of chairs of similar design but lacking the knee carving, see Christie's New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27-28, 1995, lot 1089).
THE SCHOOL OF JOB TOWNSEND, SR.
The well-documented work of John Townsend and John Goddard illustrate divergent traditions favored by the two major cabinetmaking schools producing high-style furniture in mid-eighteenth century Newport. Closely related but not identical to John Goddard's work, the chairs' carved knees and ball-and-claw feet indicate that they were made by Goddard or a woodworker trained in the same school established by the master craftsman, Job Townsend, Sr. (1699-1765). With a small number of stop-fluted petals arranged in an elongated cluster, the chairs' knee carving resembles the lower clusters found on John Goddard's tables, such as the tea table he made for Jabez Bowen in 1763 (figs. 2 and 3). Such characteristics contrast with the work of John Townsend, who was trained in the competing cabinetmaking school established by his father, Christopher Townsend (1701-1787). Carving similar designs on the knees of tables and high chests, John Townsend employed a greater number of more vertically compressed petals that extend to the edge of the legs. Further demonstrating the preferences of John Goddard, the chairs' ball-and-claw feet are composed of softly modulated knuckles with those on the rear talon particularly bulbous, a squat ball and a flat area between tendons (fig. 5). John Townsend's feet, however, feature angular knuckles with no pronounced knuckles on the rear talons, a taller ball and a convex area between tendons (Moses, pp. 210-211; for examples illustrating the different preferences of each school, see Moses, frontispiece, figs. 1.28, 1.31, 3.34-38, 3.73-75, 3.99-100, 5.10-12, pl. 8).
With subtle details of the carving different from and not unique to the known work of John Goddard, the chairs may have been made by his master and father-in-law, Job Townsend, Sr. or by a fellow apprentice. The chairs' knee carving lacks the extended central petal seen on the Bowen tea table (figs. 2 and 3) and as Michael Moses demonstrates, similar ball-and-claw feet adorn furniture not attributed to Goddard. In addition to Job Townsend, Sr., other furniture makers trained in the same school who were old enough to produce such chairs in the 1750s or early 1760s include Job's sons, Job Townsend, Jr. (1726-1778) and Edmund Townsend (1736-1811). Preventing an object-based comparison, the few surviving forms documented to these individuals are case pieces that lack carved knees and ball-and-claw feet. However, as the carved shells on these case pieces indicate, all were accomplished carvers and Job Townsend, Jr.'s account book includes a 1762 entry for a bedstead with "claw feet" (Moses, p.211; Job Townsend, Jr., Account Book, 1750-1778, Newport Historical Society, p. 75).
THE WINTHROP FAMILY OF NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT
Inherited by descendants of the Winthrop and Folsom families, the chairs may have been made for John Still Winthrop (1720-1776) of New London, Connecticut, a direct ancestor of the present owners (fig. 8). While other ancestors of the family hail from Vermont, Maine and New York, the Winthrop family with its ties to Newport stands as the most likely line in which the chairs descended in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Financially prosperous, the Winthrop family was allied with the political elite of early New England. John Still Winthrop was the great-great grandson of Governor John Winthrop (1588-1649) who led the Puritan migration in 1630 on board the Arabella where he delivered his famous sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity" in which he proclaimed, "we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill." The son of John Winthrop, F.R.S., John Still Winthrop graduated from Yale College in 1737 and soon after joined his father, who had been living in England since the younger John was a child. After his father's death in 1747, John Still returned to America and by way of Nantucket and Newport settled on his family's homestead in New London. In 1750, he married Jane Borland (1732-1760) and soon after began building his mansion at the head of Winthrop's Cove in New London. Coinciding with the chairs' production, these events may have led to the commission of such fashionable furniture. After his wife's death, John Still married Elizabeth (Shirreff) Hay (1724-1793), the widow of Captain John Hay. Besides New London's proximity to Newport, John Still had ties to the port city through the marriage of his sister, Mary to Joseph Wanton (1705-1780) of Newport, the last colonial Governor of Rhode Island. Also, as a surviving letter from John Still to Reverend Ezra Stiles of Newport indicates, John Still who inherited his great-great grandfather's writings lent his copy of John Winthrop's "The History of New England" to Stiles in 1767. In this letter, John Still requested that Stiles take good care of the manuscripts and in closing noted, "with my compliments to yor fire side and all friends at Newport." Throughout his life, John Still managed his family's large real estate holdings and upon his death in 1776, left an estate worth almost L10,000 (Mayo, The Winthrop Family in America (Boston, 1948), pp. 154-164; Dexter, ed., The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York, 1901), vol. 1, p. 66).
Along this line of descent, the chairs would have been passed down to Benjamin Winthrop (1762-1844), John Still's eldest son by his second marriage. A prosperous New York merchant, Benjamin married Judith Stuyvesant, a direct descendant of Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New York. Their daughter, Margaret Cornelia (1801-1863) married the Honorable George Folsom (1802-1869) of Maine and New York. Graduating from Harvard in 1822, Folsom was a successful lawyer in Massachusetts before moving to New York in 1840. In addition to pursuing literary and antiquarian interests, he served in the state senate and was appointed minister to Holland by President Taylor (Mayo, pp. 219-222; Dingwell, Jr., Genealogy of the Folsom Family, 3 vols. (The Folsom Family Association of America, 1981), vol. 2, p. 587).
Traced to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the family histories of the other known chairs from the same set diverge from each other and the Winthrop-Folsom line and suggest the set was dispersed among distant relations or non-family members in the eighteenth century. The chair at the Metropolitan Museum has been traced to Sarah Lyon (1774-1843) of Newport who married Aaron Fisher Dyer (1769-1822) in 1795. A possible link to the Winthrop family is through Aaron's father Joseph (b. 1735) and John Still Winthrop's second wife, Elizabeth Shirreff. Though the genealogical record is unclear, Joseph and Elizabeth may have been the individuals of the same names who were both grandchildren of Daniel Shirreff (1658-1737), making them first cousins. Two of the chairs in a private collection are known to have descended through three generations of Charles Morris Smiths of Providence. The first Charles Morris Smith (b. 1838) was the grandson of Amos Denison Smith of Groton, Connecticut, who may have had ties to the Winthrop family through John Still Winthrop's ownership of a large farm in Groton (Heckscher, p. 44; Dyer Bible Records, Newport Historical Society; Mayo, p. 162).
The chairs from the same set are inscribed as follows: On the interior of the seat rails, the chair at the Metropolitan Museum is marked I (with XIIII on the slip-seat frame) and the three chairs in a private collection are marked VIII, IIII and XII. On the chairs' crests, splats, shoes and rear rails, the chair at the Metropolitan Museum is marked XII and the three chairs in a private collection are marked XI, VIII and VI respectively.