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Side Chair
circa 1880ebonized cherry with incised and gilded carving and oak
34 1/8 in. x 17 5/8 in. x 18 5/8 in. (86.68 cm x 44.77 cm x 47.31 cm)
Museum Purchase: Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Russell C. Norton in Memory of Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Capron Norton, and Currier Funds, 1981.80
Herter Brothers
American, active 1864–1907
While custom treatments for the very rich were a Herter Brothers specialty, the firm also sold furnishings to a more modest clientele that was interested in the latest designs but did not require one-of-a-kind exclusivity. For these customers, stock such as this finely crafted, and expensive, but not unique chair was kept on hand in the brothers' East Eighteenth Street wareroom. The word "Store," penciled on the inside of the back seat rail, may refer to this location or may simply mean that the chair was to be kept in stock storage until it was needed. Several other Herter Brothers chairs bear the same mark. An identical chair, with a Brooklyn history, is in the collection of the High Museum in Atlanta. America's fascination with Japanese art and culture was at its peak in 1880, approximately when this chair was made. The popular Japanese Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, held in 1876, had introduced many Americans to the arts of Japan. Together with English reform literature and the writings of American reformers like Charles Locke Eastlake, the Centennial launched a craze for things Japanese. Herter Brothers was in the vanguard of that craze and supplied a Japanesque bedroom suite to William T. Carter of Philadelphia the year of the Centennial.
The chair shown here is made of ebonized cherry that has the smooth look of lacquer. A floating, low-relief carved panel set in the chair's back is reminiscent of Japanese wood carving. The subject of the carving, birds in flight, was used extensively in Japanesque designs and was a favorite Herter motif as well, appearing in marquetry on a table now in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum. The spare design of the chair back is a clever open grid of rectangles and squares that gives the piece a delicate appearance, as do the tapered legs and widely spaced sets of spindles connecting the primary and secondary seat rails. Carving also appears on the chair's crest rail, on either side of what looks like a handle. This type of chair, sometimes called a reception chair, was meant for use in a reception room, or parlor. The convenient handhold rendered the chair perfectly adapted to an environment that necessitated frequent rearranging to suit conversation groups and variable numbers of guests. Like other Anglo-Japanesque Herter side chairs, this example is a carefully considered statement, meticulously crafted and designed to reflect the latest in fashionable taste.
WNH and KB
REFERENCES
Doreen Bolger Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement. Ex. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. Pp. 438-40.
David A. Hanks. "Herter Brothers: Art in Furniture." The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts (Spring 1986): 32-39.
William N. Hosley. The Japan Idea. Ex. cat. Wadsworth Atheneum, 1990. Pp. 137-39.
The chair shown here is made of ebonized cherry that has the smooth look of lacquer. A floating, low-relief carved panel set in the chair's back is reminiscent of Japanese wood carving. The subject of the carving, birds in flight, was used extensively in Japanesque designs and was a favorite Herter motif as well, appearing in marquetry on a table now in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum. The spare design of the chair back is a clever open grid of rectangles and squares that gives the piece a delicate appearance, as do the tapered legs and widely spaced sets of spindles connecting the primary and secondary seat rails. Carving also appears on the chair's crest rail, on either side of what looks like a handle. This type of chair, sometimes called a reception chair, was meant for use in a reception room, or parlor. The convenient handhold rendered the chair perfectly adapted to an environment that necessitated frequent rearranging to suit conversation groups and variable numbers of guests. Like other Anglo-Japanesque Herter side chairs, this example is a carefully considered statement, meticulously crafted and designed to reflect the latest in fashionable taste.
WNH and KB
REFERENCES
Doreen Bolger Burke et al., In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement. Ex. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. Pp. 438-40.
David A. Hanks. "Herter Brothers: Art in Furniture." The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts (Spring 1986): 32-39.
William N. Hosley. The Japan Idea. Ex. cat. Wadsworth Atheneum, 1990. Pp. 137-39.
Exhibition
1990 Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, "The Cult of Japan: Art and Domestic Life in Victorian America." Oct. 14 - Dec. 29. 1993 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "Celebrate America! Three Centuries of American Art from the Currier." June 19 - Aug. 29.
1994 Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, "A Seat for All: Chairs from the Permanent Collection." May 28 - Aug. 14.
1995-1997 "American Art from the Currier Gallery of Art." Organized by the Currier Gallery of Art and the American Federation of Arts. Traveled to: Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, Dec. 3, 1995 - Jan. 28, 1996; Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, Mar. 15 - Apr. 7, 1996; Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA, Aug. 10 - Oct. 13, 1996; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, Feb. 2 - Mar. 30, 1997; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Apr. 25 - June 22, 1997; Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH, July 18 - Sept. 8, 1997, cat. no. 49.
2016-17 Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, "JapanAmerica: Points of Contact 1876-1970" August 27-Dec. 18, 2016; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, Feb. - May, 2017.
Provenance
Lyndhurst Corporation, New York, NY Purchased by Currier Gallery of Art, 1981
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