拍品专文
The modified shield-back of this chair is a characteristic found on a small number of Federal side chairs. Known examples have been attributed to cabinetmakers Thomas Howard Jr. of Providence and Elbert Anderson of New York. A chair with a similarly carved splat and nearly identical inlay, traditionally thought to have been made in the shop of Thomas Howard Jr., is in the John Brown House and illustrated in The John Brown House: Loan Exhibition of Rhode Island Furniture (Rhode Island, 1965) fig.19, pp.20. Another similar chair thought to have been made by Howard is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is illustrated in Robert Bishop, Centuries and Styles of the American Chair (New York, 1972), fig.399. A chair with similarly carved and inlaid back attributed to Anderson is illustrated in Scherer, New York Furniture: The Federal Period 1788-1825 (Albany, 1988), p.11. A chair with similarly inlaid and carved splat was Sold in these Rooms, 23 June 1993, lot 164.