Chairs of this form with high upholstered backs, squared serpentine arms and distinctive volute arm supports have long been associated with the shop of Joseph Short of Newburyport, Massachusetts. This attribution was based upon a related undocumented lolling chair found in Newburyport and a Joseph short label that noted he made lolling chairs (Swan, 'Newburyport Furniture Makers,' The Magazine Antiques (April 1945):222-225). These chairs, in fact have stronger ties to Portsmouth, New Hampshire than to Newburyport. The feature which links this group to Portsmouth is the carved volute arm support which is found on a number of documented Portsmouth chairs (Jobe, ed., Portsmouth Furniture (SPNEA, 1993), cat. 88). These distinctive arm supports in fact differ from the arm supports on a labeled Joseph Short chair which slopes down to meet the front legs (Skinner Inc., June 12, 1994, lot 154).

Because of the close proximity and mercantile ties between Portsmouth and Newburyport, this fort of lolling chair with scrolled arm supports may well have been made in both communities, supporting a regional appreciation versus the output of a single shop.

This group of lolling chairs share construction characteristics which include the use of maple or birch secondary woods (sometimes as primary wood), high backs, similarly shaped arms with carved volute arm supports slid into dovetail slots in the side seatrails, and often have stretchers with 1/4 rounded top edges.

This lolling chair relates to an example signed in chalk 'R Hart' for the Portsmouth merchant Richard Hart who is known to have branded his name on at least twelve pieces of furniture made in Portsmouth (Sack Collection; Jobe, pp. 431-432).

There are numerous related examples but the following are closest in form and proportion to this chair. See Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing (New York, 1985), fig. 215; Sack, American Furniture from Sack Collection IX (1989), p. 2473, P5738; IV, no. 25 (1974), p. 1069, P3964; Christie's, June 22, 1994, lot 171.