Massachusetts, 1660-1700, soft maple (by micro-analysis) with oak stretchers and rails, with turned stiles and front stretcher, double side stretchers, now set with later Turkish style upholstery, 42 x 20-1/2 x 17 in.

Provenance: Collection of John B. and Marie-Teresa Vander Sande, Newbury, Massachusetts

Note: An exceptional rarity, this is one of perhaps only three known American high back chairs of this form and date. A very closely related example is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See Trent and Anderson, "The Boston Cromwellian Chair and its Competitors, 1660-1705", in American Furniture, 2017, figure 23. The chair offered here differs in having more elaborate double turnings on the front legs. The third example known to us is in the collections of the New York State Museum. See A Cubberd, Four Joyne Stools, & Other Smalle Thinges, cat. no. 139. Low back Boston examples that share this double turning detail are in the collections of the Winterthur Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.