Fiddleback Side Chair
Artist
Daniel Hendrickson
Period1770 - 1785
MediumMaple, and ash
Dimensions40.5 × 20.5 × 16 in. (102.9 × 52.1 × 40.6 cm)
ClassificationsSeating Furniture
Credit LineGift of Miss Elizabeth W. Carson, 1932
Object number1991.514
DescriptionThe fiddleback side chair consists of a rounded, yoke shaped crest rail above a vase shaped splat that is tenoned at the bottom into a rectangular shoe. The rear stiles are column turned over a small baluster and flattened ball, with a conical shaped terminal where it attaches to the crest rail. The front legs have been turned in "country Queen Anne" versions of cabriole legs that have baluster shapes just under the seat lists, and that end in double pad feet. The front tripartite stretcher features a ring turning flanked by two ball elements, and baluster shaped terminals. The other five stretchers are simply dowel turned. Painted decoration consists of a ground color of dark green, and a floral arrangement on the splat that includes red roses in bud and bloom and a yellow four petal flower. Other details have been highlighted in yellow. The chair retains its original tightly woven rush seat.Curatorial RemarksThe fiddleback side chair was no doubt made in New York City, ca. 1770 - 1785, but decorated in Monmouth County by artist Daniel Hendrickson (1723 - 1788) of Middletown. Three other works by Hendrickson contain depictions of flowers. They are: a portrait of his daughter Catherine Hendrickson (1754 - 1835) now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (https://www.nga.gov/Collection/art-object-page.42448.html); a painted door removed in 1927 from the Cornelius Covenhoven House in Holmdel, Monmouth County and now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York (http://collection.folkartmuseum.org/view/objects/asitem/search@/0?:state:flow=febd821d-a277-484d-99e6-c41aa1e11370); and a second painted door removed from the Wyckoff House at Six Mile Run, Franklin Township, Somerset County, now owned by the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. It is discussed in Roderic H. Blackburn and Ruth Piwonka, Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts and Culture in Colonial America, 1609 - 1776 (Albany: Albany Institute of History and Art, 1988), 272 - 273, and illustrated in color on page 28. All three floral arrangements are shown in vases. In the portrait of Catherine, it contains red carnations in bud and in bloom. The Covenhoven door shows red roses in bud and in bloom, blue tulips, and yellow and red four petal flowers. The Wyckoff door includes red roses in bud and bloom, blue and red tulips, and the same yellow and red four petal flowers that appear on the Covenhoven door. All of the roses, carnations and four petal flowers are executed in the same way. Hendrickson started with a suitable shape of a solid color, and then created the effects of petals with lines in a contrasting color, typically yellow or red. The buds and blooms are attached to stems and leaves of solid green with no shading or veins depicted. Most of the leaves are crescent shaped. Rose buds on the two doors include two small leafy elements on either side of the bud itself. The three chairs are ornamented with the same floral details as the portrait and two doors. They include red roses in bloom and in bud, as well as a simplified four petal flower, all delineated in the same artistic manner as the other three examples of Hendrickson's hand. The artist then added further decoration to the chairs by outlining in yellow the front edges of the splat, crest rail and shoe. At the base of the splat he painted what might be interpreted as an open daisy. Other details have been highlighted in yellow. Two of the chairs, including the Association's example, retain their original tightly woven rush seats, preserved by a thick coat of paint. For a self portrait of Daniel Hendrickson and further biographical information about him, see accession number 1976.16.1. For a portrait by Hendrickson believed to be of his neighbor Peter Luyster, see accession number 1976.16.2.NotesThree floral decorated fiddleback chairs from a single set have descended in the Hendrickson family of Monmouth County. A paper label on the underside of the woven rush seat of the Association's example reads, "Elizabeth W. Carson / 7 Broad Street / Freehold." The chair was described in Association collection records as "1 Chair. Painted Dutch. from Hendrickson family." Miss Carson was a great- great- granddaughter of Daniel Hendrickson (1723 - 1788) of Middletown, Monmouth County. In addition to his activities as a farmer, industrialist, ship owner, and musician, Hendrickson also became an accomplished artist. He painted large and small portraits of his family and friends, and also engaged in ornamental work such as painting a tavern sign, decorating a pew door, providing valence patterns for a near neighbor, and renewing the finishes on his minister's chaise. In an entry dated 25 July 1763, Hendrickson's ledger at Rutgers University Alexander Library Special Collections indicates that he billed his cousin Cornelius A. Covenhoven 2 pounds, 4 shillings and 7 pence for "Chair Work." A detailed listing of pigments applied to the chairs included, "1/2 an oz. Prussian blue, 1/2 an oz. Yellow pink, 1/2 an oz. Blue frost, 2 books leaf gold, a Quart and pint of lintseed oyle @ 9s pr gn, to a lb of White Lead, and To 1 1/2 lb. Spanish Brown @ 6d." After itemizing all of the supplies involved, Hendrickson charged Covenhoven one pound for "My work in painting and gilding." Those chairs would have been very colorful, the Spanish brown no doubt being the ground pigment. Daniel Hendrickson died intestate in 1788. But a surviving draft will seems to have been generally followed. In it he left to his daughter Catherine (1754 - 1835) "the half a dozen of chairs," along with a lengthy list of other furnishings, paintings, provisions, and spaces in the house for her use as long as she is unmarried. Catherine remained single, and when she died in 1835 she left "6 green chairs" to her niece Catherine Hendrickson Lane. The background color of the chairs is a dark green under varnish that has turned brown. If these chairs were those bequeathed to Lane, then they were subsequently distributed among her relatives given their histories of ownership in another branch of the family. Or perhaps she did not want the chairs so they were simply left with the estate. Catherine Hendrickson lived in the ancestral homestead with her younger brother Hendrick, who had inherited it from their father Daniel. An inventory of Hendrick's possessions taken on 28 January 1841 included "6 fiddle back chairs" valued at $3.00 that were located in the northwest room upstairs. Elizabeth Carson of Freehold was his great-granddaughter. Assuming that those six chairs are in fact the set from which the three have originated, then the one owned by the Association would have descended in the family as follows: from the artist to his son Hendrick Hendrickson (1758 - 1840); to his daughter Jane Hendrickson Hendrickson (1792 - 1875); to her daughter Adelia Hendrickson Carson (1828 - 1911); to her daughter Miss Elizabeth W. Carson (1863 - 1934). A second chair from the set descended to Adeline Holmes Lubkert (1916 - 2016) of Holmdel, Monmouth County. It was sold at an auction of her estate on 7 October 2017 to private collectors. Its assumed provenance is as follows: from the artist to his son Hendrick Hendrickson (1758 - 1840); to his daughter Jane Hendrickson Hendrickson (1792 - 1875); to her daughter Sarah Hendrickson Longstreet (1826 - 1888); to her son Garret D. Longstreet (1865 - 1942); to his daughter Sarah Matilda Longstreet Holmes (1893 - 1942); to her daughter Adeline Holmes Lubkert. The set therefore seems to have been broken up after the death of Jane Hendrickson Hendrickson, wife of Garret D. Hendrickson (1787 - 1861) and granddaughter of the artist. The third chair was owned formerly by Mrs. William C. Riker (1908 - 1970), president of the Association from 1950 to 1967, as well as a collector and longtime resident of Holmdel. It also remains in private hands. A potential fourth chair from the set decorated by Daniel Hendrickson was reportedly sold at an auction in Keyport, Monmouth County, in the mid-1970s.
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