The ceremonial armchair made for the royal governor’s use in the Capitol Building at Williamsburg, Virginia, is one of the most iconic seating forms with an American history, but its place of manufacture, original appearance, and specific function have been the subject of decades of debate (fig. 1). Furniture historians have traditionally attributed the chair to England or Williamsburg; speculated about whether the crest was originally straight, arched, or fitted with a royal coat of arms; and suggested that the chair could have been used in the General Court or the Council Chamber. Although little new scholarship pertaining to the governor’s chair has emerged over the last fifteen years, the recent discovery of two related backstools owned by a descendant of an eastern Virginia family prompted new research (see fig. 10). This essay will show how the structural and upholstery evidence of these three chairs sheds light on their origin, ceremonial context, changes in design, and how those objects were perceived.[1]
History and Historiography
The history of the armchair is essential to understanding how it looks today. Although presumably made for the second Capitol Building in Williamsburg and taken to Richmond when the seat of government moved there in 1780, the earliest reference to the chair is in the June 16, 1866, issue of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (fig. 2). Leslie reported that the chair was “made in England, and sent over, with the stoves, as presents for the House of Burgesses.” His stylized illustration shows the chair with cross-stretchers; an upholstered seat, back, and arms (which he described as “lined in red”); a book rest attached to the lion-head terminal of the left arm; and an arched crest and stiles faced with wooden strips. Tradition maintains that the chair was subsequently stored in the attic of the State Capitol Building, then given to William McKie Dillard (1856–1902), who was doorkeeper of the House of Delegates. Richmond antiques dealer Hugh Proctor Gresham purchased the chair from Dillard’s son and sold it to a local dealer named J.F. Biggs by 1928, when John D. Rockefeller’s agent the Reverend W. A. R. Goodwin acquired the chair for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.[2]
The earliest accession records indicate that the chair was sent to the New York City firm W.H. Sloane for restoration to be supervised by R.T.H. Halsey. That work included removal of the arched crest and nineteenth-century upholstery, repair of damaged or missing areas of the rear feet, and installation of new upholstery (figs. 3, 4). When the chair was displayed at the “Girl Scouts Loan Exhibition” in 1929, it had a square back, cross-stretchers, and damask upholstery (fig. 5). Aside from removal of the nineteenth-century stretchers and replacement of the missing knee blocks, little was done to change the design of the governor’s chair until 1977, when a board was added to the crest to elevate the back and create an arched profile. From that point until now, scholars have assumed that the chair originally had a “rounded crest,” which “had been cut off, leaving a short square back.” In changing the profile, Colonial Williamsburg curators and conservators looked to contemporaneous British and southern ceremonial chairs, most of which have tall backs. They also noted that the seat height mandated the use of a footstool, as was the case with the thrones of George II and III and the chair depicted in John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Henry Laurens, who served as governor of South Carolina from 1775 to 1776 (fig. 6).[3]
The most significant scholarship on the governor’s chair is presented in Wallace Gusler’s Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia, 1710–1790 and Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown’s Southern Furniture, 1680–1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection. Gusler theorized that the chair was made for “the Governor’s [use] . . . in the General Court,” that it was likely displayed beneath an elaborate canopy, and that “a set of similar chairs of regular height may have accompanied it.” He also pointed out relationships between the governor’s chair and a master’s chair made for Williamsburg Masonic Lodge Six, specifically the use of lion-head arm terminals, arm supports with leaf carving on their outer faces and geometric designs on the inner face, and knees with asymmetrical scroll and acanthus. Based on those shared details, Gusler attributed the construction of the governor’s chair to the Anthony Hay shop and the carving to James Wilson, a London-trained artisan who advertised in Williamsburg in 1755. Hurst and Prown’s interpretation differed in two respects. They felt that the chair was probably made for the governor’s Council Chamber, and that its place of manufacture could have been either Britain or Williamsburg.[4]
Upholstery Evidence: Photographic
Photographs in the accession file for the governor’s chair document five different upholstery treatments. The earliest upholstery, likely done under the supervision of New York decorator Ernest LoNano before 1929, featured a damask show cloth and brass nails with central bosses and milled edges spaced approximately two inches apart (fig. 7). By 1963 the damask had been replaced with leather, and small brass nails were applied, end to end, around the lower edge of the arms and seat, rear edges of the crest and rear stiles, and lower edge of the rear seat rail (fig. 8). In 1977 Williamsburg conservators removed the leather, added an arched board to the crest, and applied new leather upholstery and nails. The tight upholstery lines from that treatment reflected new understanding about period upholstery practices (fig. 9). Additional information gleaned from the study of British ceremonial seating led the foundation’s curators and conservators to replace the leather with red silk velvet and apply fringe on the lower edge of the arms and seat and rear edges of the back stiles in 1985. That treatment remained in place until 2012, when the upholstery was removed to facilitate comparison of the frame with the frames of the recently discovered backstools.[5]
The Backstools
In the summer of 2012, Fredericksburg antiques dealer Bill Beck sold the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation two backstools with ornament executed by the carver of the governor’s chair (fig. 10). The backstools were described as a “Pr. Mahogany side chairs [with], paw feet, acanthus carved knees, [and] upholstered backs” in the October 6, 2011, estate sale of William N. Wilbur. His deceased wife, Mary Tyler McCormick Wilbur (1915–1981), had descended from several eastern Virginia families. Microanalysis verified the use of several secondary woods, including red pine, which provided strong evidence that the backstools and governor’s chair were made in Britain.[6]
All three chairs have sculptural paw feet and knees decorated with asymmetrical shell and acanthus carving, a formula common in British furniture of the mid-eighteenth century (figs. 11, 12). This knee design also occurs in Boston and New York furniture, but the carving on those objects is not as professionally rendered as that on the backstools and governor’s chair. On the latter objects, the leaf and shell motifs are subtly modeled and shaded with carefully regulated flutes made with a very small gouge. Other than minor differences in scale and one design adjustment that reflected a mistake on the part of the carver (fig. 13), the foot and knee carving on the backstools and armchair is nearly identical.[7]
Structural details suggest that the shop responsible for the backstools made them from stock-in-trade side chairs with over-the-rail upholstery, probably to fulfill a large order that also included the governor’s chair. Evidence of conversion is the rounded back edge of the rear posts (fig. 14), replaced seat rails (fig. 15), and unusual attachment of the back, which was simply glued and screwed to the sawn-off rear posts of the repurposed side chairs (fig. 16). The screw threads are die-cut rather than filed, indicating a mid-eighteenth-century date (fig. 17). On most backstools, the stiles of the back frame extend below the lower rail and are set in notches in the side rails. The addition of an upholstered back, which would have been about 1 1/2 inches thicker than a splat, necessitated the use of longer side rails. Because this changed the geometry of the seat, the front rail had to be replaced as well. The maker simply sawed through the original beech front and side rails, leaving their glued-in tenons in place (see fig. 15). Because the traditional joint location had been compromised, he cut new mortises that were more centered on the leg stock and lower than the originals. This new tenon location required the use of front and side rails that descended lower at their juncture with the legs and required alteration of the knee blocks (fig. 18). The blocks, which were originally attached to the stiles of the front legs, were sawn and chopped out to fit over and under the new rails.
The upholstery evidence on the backstools supports the theory that they are period conversions made to accompany the governor’s chair. Fragments of the original dark red silk show cloth are trapped under nails on the front (fig. 19), and fragments of matching red wool are under nails on the back. Period brass nail shanks, which occur at approximately two-inch intervals on both the back and seat frame, indicate that the backstools were upholstered at the same time (fig. 20).
The Governor’s Chair
Subsequent examination of the frame of the governor’s chair revealed tiny fragments of red silk and matching red wool in the same contexts as those on the backstools, along with brass nail shanks at two-inch intervals (figs. 21-23). The shanks on the front and side rails of the seat and arms are approximately one inch above the lower edge, denoting the use of one-inch fringe. Presumably, the footstool received a similar treatment. As is the case with their nearly identical carving, the upholstery evidence on the governor’s chair and backstools supports the theory that they were purchased as a suite. If the suite were made for use in the Council Chamber, a dozen backstools would have been required to seat each member.
With its more elaborate upholstery, the governor’s chair reflected that person’s position as the Crown’s representative in Virginia. As previous scholars have suggested, the chair may have been displayed under a canopy and raised on a platform similar to those shown in the engraving A View of the House of Peers. The King Sitting on the Throne, the Commons Attending Him at the End of the Session, 1755 (fig. 24). Like the armchairs on either side of George II’s throne, the backstools would likely have sat at floor level.[8]
Scholars have also speculated about the display of a royal coat of arms with the governor’s chair, and whether that armorial was attached to or suspended above the crest. Precedent for an attached armorial can be found in contemporaneous ceremonial seating from Britain as well as an armchair made for the royal governor of South Carolina (fig. 25). The coat of arms on the South Carolina chair is missing, but mortises and screw holes in the back of its crest demonstrate that the chair had an armorial attached with a wrought-iron armature (fig. 26). X-radiography and visual examination of the wood surfaces and nail shanks on the Virginia governor’s chair indicate that the crest was reduced in height and rabbeted on the back but uncovered no evidence for an attached coat of arms (fig. 27). Although these alterations make it impossible to exclude an attached or integral coat of arms as part of the original design, it is far more likely that the chair originally had a square back and a coat of arms suspended above. The crest rail shows no sign of catastrophic damage, which would likely have been present if an integral coat of arms broke off, or evidence for the attachment of an armorial.[9]
When the governor’s chair was upholstered in 1977, two strips of mahogany were removed from the frame and placed in storage, where they remained until 2013. Nail evidence indicates that the long strip was attached to the left rear stile (fig. 28) and the shorter strip to the right rear stile. The discovery of a partial mortise drilled in the top of the long strip led to a closer study of the crest, which had been patched at both ends (fig. 29). The mortise was cut with a center bit, which had a short lead and outside cutter (fig. 30). Removal of one of the patches on the crest revealed another partial mortise that matched the one on the mahogany strip (fig. 31). These mortises and the one-half-inch rabbet on the back edge of the crest (fig. 32) were probably related to the attachment of an arched extension, installed before Frank Leslie illustrated the chair in 1866 (see fig. 2). The individual responsible for that work probably cut off the top edge of the crest, presumably to remove a surface compromised by holes from upholstery nails. If the stock used to make the crest was of the same dimensions as the stiles of the back frame, which is the case with the backstools, only one half inch is missing from the top. That would have been enough space to attach the original upholstery. The back of the governor’s chair did not have webbing like the backstools. To support the foundation, the upholsterer nailed a single piece of linen to the front face of the back frame of the governor’s chair. In contrast, the seat frame of that chair has nail sites from period webbing.[10]
Between the 1930s and 1960s, original materials used to cover upholstered seating furniture made or used in the American colonies was often removed and, more often than not, discarded. Important evidence was lost in the process. Although the governor’s chair, too, was reupholstered by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the process was well documented, and each element that was removed from the frame was preserved, making it possible to meticulously examine the piece in order to return it to what we believe was its original appearance (fig. 33).[11]
No study of this type can be undertaken in isolation. Although the physical evidence on the frame of the governor’s chair was the most important consideration in determining its likely original appearance, paintings and prints depicting British ceremonial chairs provided a wealth of information about the upholstery and use of contemporaneous examples. Another important source consulted during this study was Colonial Williamsburg’s extensive collection of seating furniture with original upholstery, which documents many methods used by early craftsmen to create the various contours and profiles. Decades spent intensely studying those objects provided the basis for our understanding of period techniques and reinforced the conclusions drawn from the evidence surviving on the frame of the governor’s chair. The results of the foundation’s commitment to the study and preservation of upholstered furniture will be published next year in a lavishly illustrated book, Reading the Evidence: The Craft and Preservation of Early Seating Upholstery by Leroy Graves.
