Chair (c. 1800): Art, History and Details

Chair (c. 1800) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Samuel McIntire (American, 1757–1811).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This chair exemplifies the neoclassic style in America. Design books published by British cabinetmakers transmitted the style to the New World. Indeed, Samuel McIntire found inspiration for this chair in Plate 2 from the 1794 edition of George Hepplewhite's Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer's Guide. The McIntire chair's shield-shaped back, however, is pointed rather than rounded, and the front legs, enriched with carved grapevines, have tapered "spade" feet with ebony applied. McIntire's carving skill brought him great success in Salem, a town half the size of Boston, but where some of the finest furniture of the period was made. This chair comes from a set owned by the Derby family, one of the most prominent in Salem.

Object facts

• Title: Chair
• Date: c. 1800
• Creator attribution: Samuel McIntire (American, 1757–1811)
• Culture: America, Salem, early 19th Century
• Type: Furniture and woodwork
• Technique: mahogany
• Dimensions: Overall: 97.2 x 57.2 x 46.4 cm (38 1/4 x 22 1/2 x 18 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Furniture
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1962.125

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cooper, Wendy A. "The Furniture and Furnishings of the Farm at Danvers." M Bulletin (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) 81 (1983): 24-45.
• Warren, David B., and Ima Hogg. Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection. New York: New York Graphic Society [in Komm.], 1975.
• Flanigan, J. Michael. American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1986.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.