A FEDERAL CARVED MAHOGANY ARMCHAIR

With its carved paterae, turned and tapering reeded legs, bulbous knees and rounded spade feet, this chair has the features traditionally associated with Henry Connelly's shop. The carving however, may suggest the hand of John R. Morris as it is similar to chairs carved by Morris for a commission ordered from the cabinetmaker Ephraim Haines (1775-1811) for Stephen Girard in 1807 (James Biddle, American Art from American Collections (New York, 1963), p. 15).

Aside from the expense of the carving, the cost of this chair was probably enhanced by what the Philadelphia book of prices in 1795 termed "French elbows... the elbows mortis'd on the stump of front foot.." This book indicates that these elbows, when made for "sweep side rails," as in this instance, cost three shillings extra (Charles Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York, 1966), p. 142, fig. 91).

This chair is thought to be one of twenty-four chairs supplied by Connelly to Mayor Thomas Willing (1731-1821) of Phildelphia in 1804. A nearly identical chair from the Willing set is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Biddle, 1963, p.15, fig. 29). Another six chairs ostensibly from the Willing set were advertised in The Magazine Antiques (October, 1960), p. 293. Another chair with the same design attributed to Connelly is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Marion Carson, "Connelly & Haines," Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 48, no. 237, cat. 16, 17).

For more information on the Willing family of Philadelphia, see E. Digby Baltzell, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia (Boston, 1979); Thomas Willing Balch, Willing Letters and Papers: 1731-1821 (Philadelphia, 1922).