Fiddleback Side Chair

Period1770 - 1800

MediumMaple, ash, and tulip poplar

Dimensions40.25 × 19.25 × 14.75 in. (102.2 × 48.9 × 37.5 cm)

ClassificationsSeating Furniture

Credit LineGift of Mrs. William C. Riker

Object number1991.515

DescriptionThe black painted maple frame includes an unusually shaped crest rail above a central vase-shaped splat of tulip poplar that is tenoned into the crest rail and shoe. The shoe has unusual rounded ends. Other features include rear posts with small baluster turnings below elongated column turnings, and sturdy turned front posts with small baluster turnings just below the seat frame. They end in double pad feet. The single front turned stretcher features a bulbous element in the center, and elaborate conical ends. There are two pairs of side stretchers and a single rear stretcher, all of ash. The woven rush seat has been replaced.
Curatorial RemarksA number of chairs identical 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 in total 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 a potential maker of these chairs. This side chair from the group formed part of the early furnishings of the Association's Holmes-Hendrickson House. 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. A large arm chair by the same maker was purchased in the early 1930s by Mrs. J. Amory Haskell (see accession number 1991.548). 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, Monmouth County. 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 elements such as the crest rail and lop-sided splat.NotesSide chairs of this distinctive form represent a Monmouth County variant of New York fiddleback chairs. Examples share the same details of workmanship, such as the cutout shape of the crest rail, an asymmetrical or lop-sided splat made from a common pattern, 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.

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