Inlaid Side Chair
Title
Inlaid Side Chair
Date
1903-04
Maker
The United Crafts
The Craftsman Workshops
Notes
The article “Puss in Boots,” featured an early iteration of this form whose proportions do not match the refinement and grace of the examples produced. The distinguishing feature of this model is a shaped front stretcher that mirrors the crest rail’s profile. In the drawing, both the crest rail and front stretcher are a bit heavier, and the vertical splats are all the same width. Sotheby’s sold an inlaid chair with with equal-sized slats and a narrow front stretcher at their American Renaissance sale on December 15, 2006, lot 414. Other versions of the chair show additional subtle refinements consonant with Stickley’s “New Line” of furniture that he announced in July 1903 by noting it was “Lighter in Effect and Subtler in Form.” A number of extant examples of this chair–which features narrower slats flanking a wider central slat–are known. See, for instance: Craftsman Auctions, March 8, 2008, lot 110 and Treadway Toomey Auction, December 4, 2011, lot 30.
Documented In
“Puss in Boots: An Old Myth in New Dress,” The Craftsman 4 (August 1903): 378.