SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, 1790-1810

According to a note provided by the estate of Mary Sullivan at the time of its sale in 1980, this set of chairs was once owned by Dr. William Parsons Derby (1867-1933), a great-great grandson of famed Salem, Massachusetts merchant Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799). Rather than being a set from the renowned commission Elias Derby ordered from carver and designer Samuel McIntire (1757-1811) for his palatial dwelling on Essex Street, the set of chairs offered here was likely ordered by a member of the family from a craftsman familiar with McIntire’s work. As noted by Dean Lahikainen, the 1799 inventory of the Derby mansion lists three sets of mahogany chairs, all with carved grapevines cascading down the front legs, and comprise a set with oval backs and prince of Wales-feather splats, a set with a central urn splat flanked by oval-inset curved bars and a third set with an urn-and-drapery splat within a shield back (Dean T. Lahikainen, Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style (Salem, 2007), pp. 223, 225).