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Lot Essay
New York City's second oldest Episcopalian church, Christ Church, was founded in 1793 in response to the City's expanding population. First situated on Ann Street, the Church relocated to a new building at 79 Anthony (now Worth) Street in 1823. The pair of armchairs offered here was undoubtedly ordered for the furnishing of this second building and as noted by Matthew Thurlow, was probably used by the rector and his assistant. The rector at this time was Dr. Thomas Lyell (1775-1848), a prominent figure in the clergy, who had previously served as chaplain to Congress under the administrations of Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. His ties to Congress may have led him to patronize the firm of Thomas Constantine & Co., which had secured the sizable commission to re-furnish the newly rebuilt US Capitol in 1818-1819. Though short-lived, Thomas Constantine's manufactory produced furniture on a large scale with a preference for the designs of London designer Thomas Hope. The carved-wing arms on these chairs are abbreviated renditions of chimeras, which adorn the ends of a sofa illustrated in plates 5 and 29 of Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1807). The base of these chairs, comprising tapering turned and reeded front legs and downswept reeded rear legs, is based on pl. 59 in the same volume and virtually identical legs appear on an armchair in the collection of Winterthur Museum. See "Christ Church. Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson's Congregation," The New York Times, 28 September 1874, accessed online; Matthew A. Thurlow, "Aesthetics, Politics, and Power in Early-Nineteenth-Century Washington: Thomas Constantine & Co.'s Furniture for the United States Capitol, 1818-1819," American Furniture 2006, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2006), pp. 210, 217, figs. 35, 36, 44. The chairs remained in the possession of Christ Church, which in 1975 merged with St. Stephens, for over 150 years before being sold at auction in 1994.