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Side chair

Professional Photography
Side chair
Professional Photography
Professional Photography
Status
Not on view
Label Text

This Louis XVI-style chair is possibly one of six "small chairs" Washington purchased from the Comte de Moustier in 1790. It was used en suite with similarly upholstered armchairs, stools, and a sofa in the New York and Philadelphia presidential residences before being sold at public auction in March 1797. The chair's molded back and seat frames, carved rosette blocks, and tapering stop-fluted legs on cylindrical bulb feet are typical of French furniture produced in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. No evidence of the original upholstery fabric, noted by Washington as "Green floured damask," survives, but recent conservation discovered fragments of a plain-woven, green-and-white checked linen that covered the chair's back.

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Date1780
Geography Made - France
DimensionsOverall: 35 1/8 in. x 18 1/2 in. x 16 5/8 in. (89.22 cm x 46.99 cm x 42.23 cm)
Credit LineGift of W. W. Corcoran, 1878
Object numberW-217/A
DescriptionLouis XVI-style side chair with upholstered, raked-back, rectangular back and trapezoidal seat on four, tapered, circular legs with spool-turned tops and stop-fluting above cylindrical feet. Crest rail, stiles and stay rail are molded with an outer half round and inner cove flanked by fillets on their fronts, and a cove on their sides; stiles below stay rail are triple fluted. Front and side seat rails are serpentine molded with two-tiered, eleven-petaled flowers or rosettes inset into squares at the front corners and faceted squares at the back corners. Painted white.
Published ReferencesCarol Borchert Cadou, The George Washington Collection: Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon (New York: Hudson Hill Press, 2006), 146-7, cat. no. 41.
Mount Vernon's object research is ongoing and information about this object is subject to change. For information on image use and reproductions, click here.
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c. 1780
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1775-1790
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c. 1785-1790
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c.1790-1795
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Mahogany, ash, maple
1800-1810
1800-1810
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Mahogany, ash, white oak
1850-1900
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Mahogany
1760-1800
1760-1800
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1760-1800
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Mahogany
1760-1800
1760-1800
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Mahogany
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1755-1760
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