A WILLIAM AND MARY TURNED MAPLE BANISTER-BACK SIDE CHAIR

Notable for its elaborate turnings, including an exceptionally large ball on the front stretcher, this side chair is virtually identical to two others at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Chipstone Foundation. As discussed by Dennis Carr, these chairs relate to several others that display unusual carved crests and stretchers and as a larger group, illustrate the vibrant woodworking traditions on the Rhode Island-Connecticut border during the early to mid-eighteenth century (Dennis Carr, catalogue entry, in Patricia E. Kane et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830 (New Haven, Conn., 2016), pp. 192-193, cat. 24; for the MFA, Boston and Chipstone chairs, see the Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery, RIF6353 and RIF6354).