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Fiddleback Arm Chair

Maker Hendrick Smock

Period1770 - 1800

MediumMaple, ash, and tulip poplar

Dimensions44.25 × 24.5 × 17.25 in. (112.4 × 62.2 × 43.8 cm)

InscribedTwo adhesive tape handwritten labels are affixed to the underside of the rush seat. Label one reads "Property of Mrs. J. Amory Haskell." Label two reads "From Mrs. William Bucklin, Phalanx, NJ. Mr. & Mrs. Bucklin purchased it from Colts Neck about 40 years ago from some family who lived at C.N."

ClassificationsSeating Furniture

Credit LineGift of Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, 1936

Object number1991.548

DescriptionThe black painted maple and ash frame includes an unusually shaped cutout crest rail above an asymmetrical or lop-sided splat tenoned into the crest rail and shoe, which has rounded terminals. The turned back posts feature a baluster turning above the shoe surmounted by a second baluster above the arm attachment and also a column turning. The unusually shaped arms with pronounced hand rests at their ends are supported by elongated baluster turnings that are part of the front posts. The posts end in pad feet. Two bulbous turnings with a reel separating them form the center part of the front stretcher, which ends in conical shaped terminals. Simple dowel-turned pairs of side stretchers and a single rear stretcher complete the frame. The chair was finished with a woven rush seat. The current seat is a replacement.
Curatorial RemarksA number of chairs related in form and workmanship to this example retain histories of ownership in the Holmdel and Colts Neck area of Monmouth County. The earliest local reference to fiddleback chairs appears in the estate inventory of Jacob Van Dorn (1703 - 1779). Taken on 9 April 1779, it makes reference to "Fourteen fiddle back chairs" which along with twenty-eight common chairs were valued at twelve pounds. Presumably, the fiddlebacks were not new at the time. Van Dorn, a highly successful farmer and mill owner with a substantial estate appraised at 2,307 pounds, also engaged at some level as a carpenter/joiner. The inventory makes reference to "Some mahogany boards, hinges and glass for a clock case," plus "Some carpinder tools" valued at 10 pounds. But Van Dorn lacked a lathe so is not considered the maker of these chairs. One side chair from the group formed part of the early furnishings of the Association's Holmes-Hendrickson House (see accession number 1991.515). The estate inventory of Garret Hendrickson (1734 - 1801) taken on 29 December 1801 makes reference to "6 fiddle back chairs" in the front parlor of the house that were appraised at one pound fourteen shillings. Another side chair of identical form came from nearby Longstreet Farm when its contents were sold in 1977. This large arm chair by the same maker was purchased in the early 1930s by Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, a prominent Americana collector and an early patron of the Association. It bears a handwritten label that reads "From Mrs. William Bucklin, Phalanx, N. J. Mr. and Mrs. Bucklin purchased it from Colts Neck about 40 years ago from some family who lived at C. N." The Hendrickson, Longstreet, and Bucklin chairs plus the Van Dorn reference all fall in a geographic area about five miles in diameter in what is now Holmdel and Colts Neck. In the very center of this cluster was a farmer and turner named Hendrick Smock (1737 - 1786). Smock's inventory includes "1 Old Turning lathe" valued at 3 shillings 9 pence, plus a demand against the estate of Jacob Van Dorn for 100 pounds as allowed by his executors. Assuming that these chairs might date as early as 1770 to 1785, then Smock may well have made them. Certainly, their turned elements are more skilfully rendered than the carpentry components such as the crest rail and lop-sided splat.NotesThis large arm chair is one of two known attributed to turner Hendrick Smock of Holmdel, Monmouth County. It relates closely to three side chairs in the Association's collection, accession numbers 1991.510.1 & .2, plus 1991.515. Chairs of this distinctive group represent a Monmouth County variant of New York fiddleback chairs. All of them share the same details of workmanship, such as the cutout shape of the crest rail, an asymmetrical or lop-sided splat, rounded ends of the shoe, turning details of the front and rear stiles, bulbous turned front stretchers, conical shaped stretcher terminals, and double pad feet. The bottom pads of this armchair have worn away.

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