Queen Anne and Chippendale chairs in Delaware

Magazine Antiques, Sept, 2001 by Philip D. Zimmerman

The many small design or construction details that may be used to argue for a Delaware origin do not in themselves define broader regional practices. Instead, reliable provenance remains an essential ingredient for identifying Delaware chairs. One day research may establish regional patterns if enough identifiably Delaware-made chair come to light. At that time too, influences of Maryland furniture on the Delaware furniture making communities may also be investigated.

This article accompanies an exhibition on view at the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, Delaware, from August 29 until October 28. Entitled Sitting Pretty: Chairs in 18th-Century Delaware, the exhibition is funded in part by Bank of America, J. Conn Scott Furniture, and the Delaware Division of the Arts. I am indebted to Thomas Beckman, Philip W Bradley, Ann Baker Horsey, Henry Horsey, James Kilvington, Frank Levy, Karol Schmiegel, Gail Serfaty, Roxanne Stanulis, and Others for their help with this Project.

(1.) This study omits a pair of eighteenth-century Philadelphia Queen Anne side chairs traditionally owned by Mrs. John McKinly (nee Jane Richardson) published in Deborah Dependahl Waters, Delaware Collections in the Museum of the Historical Society of Delaware (Historical Society of Delaware. Wilmington, 1984), No. t, p. 12.

(2.) The inventory is in Wills and Inventories, Delaware State Archives. Dover.

(3.) Each was sufficiently well established to take on apprentices in 1767. Other mid-eighteenth-century Delaware furniture makers were charles Bush (w. 1738- c. 1758) of Wilmington and John Williams (w. 17001758) of New Castle. George crow (w. 1740-1762), a Wilmington clockmakcr, died in 1762 in possession of three unfinished clock cases and joiners' tools indicating that he or someone working for him did cabinetwork. As research continues, other names will probably come to light. See Charles G. Dorman, "Delaware Cabinetmakers and Allied Artisans, 1655-1855," Delaware History,; vol. 9, no. 2 (October 1960), pp. 113,115-116, 135, 192-194; and Harold B. Hancock, "Furniture Craftsmen in Delaware Records," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 9 (1974), pp. 181, 186, 207.

(4.) The dressing table is illustrated in Important American Furniture: The Contents of Langdon (Sotheby's, New York, 1985), Sale 5295, February 2, 1985, Lot 1150. It will also be included in the forthcoming catalogue of the Sewell C. Biggs Collection.

(5.) Sec John A. H. Sweeney, Grandeur on the Appoquinimink: The House of William Corbit at Odessa, Delaware (University of Delaware Press, Newark, 1959), pp. 110-118.

(6.) The armchair is illustrated in Important American Furniture: The Contents of Langdon, Lot 1156. One of the side chairs is in the possession of the Ridgely family of Dover, and the second was acquired for the Biggs Collection from the estate of the Delaware furniture historian Charles G. Dorman. The latter will be included in the forthcoming catalogue of the Biggs Collection.

(7.) Cited in Philadelphia. Three Centuries of American Art (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, t976), No. 101. pp. 127-128.