Side Chair

Datecirca 1918

Mediumpainted wood, cane

DimensionsOverall: 35 3/8 × 18 1/4 × 20 1/2 in. (89.9 × 46.4 × 52.1 cm)

Credit LineReynolda Estate

CopyrightPublic Domain

Object number1922.2.199

DescriptionThe side chair with caned seat is of neo-classical shape overall with tapered legs having recessed panels capped with small rectangular panels at the ends of the plain front skirt. The paneled stiles curve backward, terminating in a wide, plain out-curved crest rail. Three small vertical slats, recessed in the middle, substitute for a back splat and define the space between the crest rail at the top and the seat rail at the bottom. The chair is painted a cream color overall with a black checkerboard pattern on the front of the narrow plain skirt and on the wide crest rail at the top of the chair’s back, which is further decorated with a reserve of blueberries on branches enclosed in plain mustard yellow frame in the center.

The decorative scheme on this chair is referred to as “Bigarré” in Chamberlayne advertisements and professional commentary of the period. The word translates in French as “colorful.” The breakfast room is described in period decorating advice manuals as being “a lounge” having an “informal nature” that should be “bright and cheerful.”
ProvenanceFrom 1964
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, acquired in 1964. [1]

Notes:
[1] In the early 1960s Charles H. Babcock (1899-1967) gave the house and its contents to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The house was then incorporated as a museum and collection (Reynolda House, Inc.) on December 18, 1964 with the signing of the charter at its first board meeting. The museum first opened to the public in September 1965.

Status

On view