Featured Chippendale Chairs Attribution

A new thread to discuss new information about a Chippendale Chair discussed in a previous post: A Tale of Two Chippendale Chairs (with a hero) | Antiques Board (antiquers.com) Member @Tim Naylor posted new information on the prior thread, and @James Conrad suggested a new thread to host the details. I have added the original chair and Tim's post to this thread, as well as some discussion that has already taken place.

 

Details (1)

 

Details (2)
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From @Tim Naylor

I think there is a very real chance your armchair was actually made by Charles Belt of Anne Arundel County, Maryland around 1775. I actually appraised your chair for the Sheppard Estate. Please take a look at this Pinterest entry: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/570127634084289457/. I'd be happy to discuss the minutia of structural characteristics, secondary woods, and design that lead me to believe this.

 

James' post
Well, I have never seen the Kiko chair personally or the Tim Naylor chair either so as much as I'd like to discuss construction details ( my fav subject) it's going to be tough for me to talk about them on these chairs!
What did Joe Kindig say, anything about the history of this chair?
My role was to assist in getting a genuine period chair that you didn't have to give up your firstborn to obtain.
My answer:
Here is what Joe said:
"Well I got your email and don't feel I can add any more to it. I bought the chair from Alice Lewis in Easton along with a number of pieces including the pair of Baltimore eagle inlaid dining tables that I sold to Bill Frieling. The chair belonged to Mrs. Lewis and came down in the Vaux family of Philadelphia. It was not part of Reg's collection but there are pieces in the Blue book that belonged to her family although she had no interest in antiques. I felt there was nothing wrong with the chair but I haven't looked at it in 45 years. I had it about ten years when Dan bought it. You know what a beating we have taken over the past eight years. Last year the almost mint Philadelphia Queen Anne Walnut chest on chest in New York sold for $16,000 that they paid $110,000 for. I don't know what to say."

Here is the provenance from Pook & Pook
A Pennsylvania Chippendale walnut armchair, ca. 1770, with a shell carved crest, pierced splat and shell carved legs, terminating in ball and claw feet. Provenance: Alice Vaux Lewis, Easton, Maryland; Joe Kindig Jr. & Son 1985; The Collection of Daniel Heisler and Mary Jane Sheppard, Lutherville, MD.

 

James' post
Does @Tim Naylor own the chair attributed to Belt, perhaps start a new thread? with new photos as this thread has wandered all over the place, which is usual.

 

Very good photographs! I see the cat had to horn in on the process!

 

Well. You did notice my avatar, didn't you?

 

Well James, you know kitties have good taste in antiques!

 

Well, where is Tim, you girls ran him off with your cat posts??!!!
A couple of points,
I notice Kindig mentions Easton and Tim AA county, Anne Arundel County is where Annapolis is and Easton is almost directly across the Chesapeake Bay on the eastern shore.
For Kiko purposes, I don't think it matters as the goal was to obtain a period chair. It would be nice though to find out additional info.
Although both chairs are very similar in photographs, that isn't good enough for attribution, an in-person examination is required. I also notice Tim is attributing his chair to Belt as well, hopefully he will return and offer more information.
If the cat ladies haven't run him off!

A quicky search of Vaux family, didn't find any furniture of theirs
http://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/v/vaux684.htm

 

If you scroll down this page, you'll find something on Charles Belt:
http://www.chipstone.org/article.ph...ture-from-the-District-of-Columbia,-1795–1820
The entire article is very interesting.

 

Actually, that Sumpter Priddy "Chipstone" Charles Belt is a later furniture maker than the Charles Belt (c.1740-1775) referred to by Gregory Weidman in Maryland Furniture 1740-1940, and the one to whom your armchair is attributed. They were obviously almost certainly related, but probably not directly. When the earlier Charles Belt died in 1775, his brother sold his estate and there doesn't seem to be any sign of him having had any children. Except for inheriting his home at Pleasant Hill in Anne Arundel County (near Annapolis) from his father, there is very little information on the earlier Charles Belt.

Just for the record, I'm just making observations based on other peoples observations. Weidman was the first that I know of to attribute these chairs to Belt (see below). Later on, Williamsburg's "Southern Furniture", while acknowledging these chairs were from the Southern Maryland area, pretty much dismissed Weidman's theory, based on family connections or lack thereof. It wasn't until the Waters Family chairs sold at Brunk Auctions in 2013, with no mention of a Charles Belt attribution, that things really started to make sense. Previously, all of these "Belt" chairs were attributed to Montgomery County and/or Prince George's County. Between 1750 and 1770, both were much more rural than Anne Arundel County, home to burgeoning Annapolis. Maybe Charles Belt did start out closer to his brother's home in Montgomery County and eventually Price George's County. But the Waters Family was from Anne Arundel County and Charles Belt lived in Anne Arundel County from at least from 1761 on.

Labelled or signed colonial furniture from Maryland is almost unheard of and Charles Belt (c.1740-1775) is no exception. I'm assuming the primary reason for attrib View attachment 301698 uting this "school of" chairmaking to him is because, before the population explosion after the Revolution, there simply weren't many makers outside of Annapolis, and Belt is one of those documented few. That would change precipitously by 1780-1790. But for the time being, the odds of Charles Belt, chair maker from a very well-to-do family, making Chippendale chairs for other well-to-do Anne Arundel County landowners, seems a very likely scenario.

I've attached too many images of some of the examples that I think begin to illustrate the stylistic progression of the "Belt" chairs, from almost pure Queen Anne, to a few hybrids in-between, to a finally realized pure Chippendale form like your armchair.

Some of the structural details that seem to be common in many if not all of these chairs are the accentuated "Cupid's bow" crest rail of course, the accentuated and "pointed" ears on the crest rails, the edges of the scalloping of the shells being perfectly concentric, the scratch-beaded edge of the crest rail and stiles, the through-tenon construction, the octagonal chamfering of the rear legs, the exaggerated rake of the rear legs, the "double bumps" on the Queen Anne splats, the deep top margins above the pierce-work (below the crest rail) on the Chippendale splats, the wider (or taller) than usual seat rails, the overly "suppressed" balls (even more so than on Philadelphia counterparts) on the feet of the Chippendale examples, triangular yellow pine glue blocks (when original), yellow pine slip seats (when original), and corner glue and knee blocks being held in with original rosehead nails. My guess is that a lot of these visually different chairs might well have had the same shop template used in the cutting out of stock components such as crest rails and rear legs.




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Interesting, Tim has looked into this extensively. Did you say you appraised Kiko arm chair? What was the secondary wood & seat frame? Yellow pine?

 

While estate appraisals are usually a bit more perfunctory than a detailed insurance appraisal, I did see in my records that the slip seat frame was not original. Unfortunately, I did not note as to the originality and/or wood type of the corner glue blocks!

 

Oh well, next time!

 

Here are my chair's original yellow pine glue blocks and knee blocks, all held in place with rosehead nails, as well as its' original yellow pine slip seat frame

 

Maybe @KikoBlueEyes could take a photo of her glue blocks and post.
Naturally, that wouldn't be definitive as PA used a lot of yellow pine in their early furniture as well. Still, be nice to compare with yours.
John Head, a rather famous early Philly cabinetmaker used white cedar in much of his secondary wood construction, which is unusual

 

But most two-part Philly blocks were quarter-round, not triangular. And rarely were makers extravagant enough to use nails on inner corner glue blocks. This isn't so much about finding a single "smoking gun", but rather looking for a combination of most, or ideally all, of these characteristics

 

True. It would be nice to see the chairs side by side in person to compare but, since Kiko is in California I think..........
What did you appraise the chair for dollar-wise as I assume chair owner at that time was selling it?