Middle Tidewater Virginia, 1700-1750
Black walnut
Catalog no. 3
This high chair has a long history of ownership on the Northern Neck of Virginia. It is part of a turned-chair tradition based in the coastal counties between the Potomac and York Rivers. Distinguishing characteristics include the flattened-ball turnings and bulbous finials, which are akin to those on many British and New England chairs made between 1650 and 1700 and continued to be used on eastern Virginia chairs as late as the 1820s. The rounded and repetitive turned elements suggest the chair was made in the early eighteenth century. The rush-woven seat replaced a plank bottom, another indication of early production.