Posted 8 years ago
Gladyiscol…
(1 item)
I was very fortunate to pick these up on our local online swap shop Each chair is signed on the back in gold.
?ETHAN ALLEN BUTTON BACK HITCHCOCK CHAIR WITH RUSH-BOTTOM ?From 1826 to 1840, Lambert Hitchcock made about 200,000 chairs in his factory in Riverton, CT and in the 1830's he was known as America's greatest chairmaker. His chairs are among the most famous pieces of furniture in American history.?The chairs were made to be decorated. Most of them had rush seats and were made in twenty parts. Several basic designs were used, but the most typical chairs were straight chairs, about the size we use around our dining room tables today. Sometimes the chairs had arms. ?The earliest and best Hitchcocks were made and decorated by master craftsmen who signed their work. Some of these chairs were grained to look like a different wood than what they were actually made. For example, a maple chair might be grained to resemble more elegant rosewood or mahogany. ?After this graining, designs were applied free-hand in gold leaf, or more frequently with stencil in gold or bronze powders. Stencils were done on a black background.
The fine chairs of this type were done in multiple stencil, which gave depth to the design and is one of the surest indications of a "good chair."