Flea Market Find

[greg Forster]

Bought this Neo-classical chair today at a local flea- market; it was described as English, but I was pretty sure itwas American. I looked thru some of my furniture books this evening and found two similar chairs- probably from the same Baltimore shop; I bought the chair to make copies- I really like the look and now with a Southern "provenance", I'm even more enthustiastic.

Southern Furniture 1680-1830 by Hurst & Prown, pgs 136-38:


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flea market find:

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[Jeff L Miller]

Beautiful chair and nice find, your knowledge was the key in a great purchase.

Im curious, what would a chair like that be worth....I also didn't hear a gloat...yet.

Wish I knew more about a lot.

Jeff

[Dave Beauchesne]

Greg:

OK, I will be first to ask: was it reasonably priced? ( I am not asking you divulge the $$, but a BEAUTIFUL Baltimore built chair like that - WOW! )
You scored big - WELL DONE -

Dave B

[greg Forster]

Greg:

OK, I will be first to ask: was it reasonably priced? ( I am not asking you divulge the $$, but a BEAUTIFUL Baltimore built chair like that - WOW! )
You scored big - WELL DONE -

Dave B



... I don't know where the "right" buyer would price this, but I'm certainly not going to star on "The Antique Road Show" with this chair; but nice to find something once in a while.

Oh, and the price...$65 with tax.

[David Keller NC]

Hmm - even if it's English, it's worth a lot more than $65. One thing about chairs of this time period is that the pattern that many were made to are common across the atlantic, and a British vs. American chiar are almost indistinguishable based on design and form alone. But - there are several charateristics that will nail it. If it contains tulip poplar for the seat and/or glue blocks, it's certifiably American. Same goes for maple. White pine and/or "hard pine" are a little more iffy, as white pine had been planted all over England for generations. And the American yellow pine group is difficult to distinguish from European Scotts pine and/or red pine once it's in a piece of furniture and has aged for a couple of hundred years.

Another positively identifying feature is inlay - if the inlay on your chair matches that of the Baltimore chair, that not only identifies it as American, it also may nail it down to a particular shop, or at least a particular city. "Paterae", such as ovals containing shells or thistles were sometimes imported during this period, though they were also made in the US. But imported stringing would've been rare, so it is often used as an identifying feature on antiques.

[greg Forster]

213476213477213478213479213480213481213482213483So me detail photos of chair; secondary woods combination of Tulip Poplar, Oak and maybe Maple (all common in Baltimore furniture of the period). Both rear legs have split out where side rail is joined; the mortice left too little wood in leg, the legs shrunk in width and of course the side rails didn't shrink along length- pushing out the back of the legs

[greg Forster]

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few more photos;

[greg Forster]

213490 a much better picture showing side rail tenon splitting out back of leg- one of the more interesting aspects of this chair ( to me anyways)