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Low Back Windsor Arm Chair
Low Back Windsor Arm Chair
Low Back Windsor Arm Chair

Low Back Windsor Arm Chair

Period1750 - 1780
MediumMaple and ash
Dimensions30 × 25.25 × 21.5 in. (76.2 × 64.1 × 54.6 cm)
ClassificationsSeating Furniture
Credit LineGift of Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, 1936
Object number2001.507
DescriptionKnown as a low back Windsor, this form features a curved horseshoe shaped crest rail ending in volute-shaped hand rests, seventeen plain turned spindles and two baluster turned arm rest supports. A heavy D-shaped saddle seat rests on four splayed baluster turned legs braced by a bulbous turned H-shaped stretcher assembly. The chair retains an old but not original dark green paint surface.
Curatorial RemarksA form of low back Windsor chair made in the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley area. It is, however, made somewhat unusual in the articulation of the medial stretcher, which features an elongated central ball turning flanked by two reels, and then baluster shaped elements. The general character of the turnings suggests a skilled but not necessarily an urban origin.NotesThe low back Windsor arm chair descended in the Taylor family of Middletown to Miss Mary Holmes Taylor (1850 - 1930), the last to reside in Orchard Home, a large and stately structure built in 1853 at the northern end of Kings Highway in Middletown village, Monmouth County. Orchard Home, now called the Taylor-Butler House, is owned by the Association. The property included Marlpit Hall, an adjacent landmark structure and Taylor ancestral home that was built in part in 1686 and enlarged greatly about 1756. As per the will of Miss Taylor, all of Orchard Home's contents, including its inherited Taylor heirlooms, were sold at auction on 20 August 1931. The auction advertisement in the Red Bank Register listed Windsor chairs. Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, a pre-eminent Americana collector who also lived in Middletown, purchased the chair, and in 1936 gave it to the Association for display at Marlpit Hall, the historic house which she had restored and presented fully furnished to the organization in that year. Accession records described the chair as "1 Round-about Windsor chair, painted green (from Mary Holmes Taylor sale." For a more extended discussion of Miss Mary Holmes Taylor and the 1931 auction, see accession number 20. Mary's brother Edward Taylor (1848 - 1911), a para-professional photographer, captured a picture of his mother Mary Holmes Taylor (1814 - 1897) entertaining three guests on the front porch at Orchard Home. The image, taken on 20 August 1889, shows the low back Windsor in the left foreground. Other porch photographs taken between 1886 and 1894 indicate that it had become a regular part of the outdoor furniture.
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