Side chair
Following George Washington's election to the presidency in 1789, Congress moved quickly to procure and furnish a suitable dwelling for him in New York City, the nation's first capital. This stately side chair is one of sixty-eight supplied by Thomas Burling as part of a large quantity of "Mahogany Furniture" for the executive residence. Burling, a Quaker cabinetmaker who retailed New York and Philadelphia-made furniture in his Beekman Street "Ware Room," provided pieces in the newly-fashionable neoclassical or Federal taste, and in the older rococo or Chippendale patterns. This chair's styling - with cabriole legs, ball-and-claw feet, and a lively Gothic-style splat - remained popular for decades. Martha Washington approved of the resulting mix of furniture styles, and declared the President's house was "handsomely furnished all new for the General."
Published ReferencesCarol Bochert Cadou, The George Washington Collection: Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2006), cat. no. 36, pp. 127, 136-37.
Christie's, New York, October 14, 1999, Lot 196.
Stephen Decatur, "George Washington and His Presidential Furniture," American Collector (February 1951): 8-15.
Susan Gray Detweiler and Charles F. Hummel, "The Case for Attributing Two Philadelphia Side Chairs to President Washington's Official Residences in Philadelphia and New York," unpublished typescript prepared for the Barra Foundation, August 1993, Mount Vernon Curatorial Files.
Henry B. Hoffman, "President Washington's Cherry Street Residence," The New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 23 (January 1939): 90-103.
William Macpherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (Philadelphia: 1935), pp. 205-6, 220-21, pl. 360. Chair appears to be identical, but because there is a gap in the provenance prior to its acquisition by Sack in 1971, it is not known whether this is Mount Vernon's chair, one of the pair now at the White House, or another.
Agnes Miller, "The Macomb House: Presidential Mansion," Michigan History 37 (December 1953): 373-384.
Anne H. Wharton, "Washington's New York Residence in 1789," Lippincott's Monthly Magazine 43 (1889): 741-45.
References to other chairs from set:
Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., The Lansdell K Christie Collection of Notable American Furniture, October 21, 1972, Lot 83. This pair of chairs are now at the White House.
Chairs with related splats (variations on top center splat design in Chippendale, Director (1762 ed.), pl. XVI):
Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952), nos. 129, 130, 141 (Benjamin Randolph attributed example).
Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of American Seating Furniture (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976), cat. nos. 108 (Benjamin Randolph labeled ex.), 109 (attrib. Eliphalet Chapin), 110 (CT ex.).
William Macpherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (Philadelphia: 1935), pls. 358-63.
