1760-1780, dramatic tall back with serpentine crest rail, fine blue damask upholstery with brass tacking, trapezoidal seat frame, incurved arms with curved supports, squared rear legs and straight front legs all joined by stretchers, 44-1/4 x 27 x 22-1/4 in.

Provenance: Collection of Robert M. Gill; Israel Sack, Inc., New York, NY; Levison and Cullen Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, October 2003 (accompanied by copy of receipt for $85,000); Estate of Richard and Shirley Roberts, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Literature: Illustrated in Israel Sack, Inc., American Furniture from Israel Sack Collection, Vol IV (1974), p. 1069, fig. P3964.

Note: Arm supports continuing to the lower level of the seat frame was a characteristic once associated with Joseph Short of Newburyport, Massachusetts, but is now known to instead thought to be a trait of Portsmouth, New Hampshire cabinetmakers, such as Robert Harrold.

Similar examples or those with similar features are illustrated in Brock Jobe, Portsmouth Furniture, Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast (1993), pp.313-315, cat. no. 84 and pp. 325-327, cat. no. 88; Marshall B. Davidson and Elizabeth Stillinger, The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1985), p. 143, fig. 215; Israel Sack, Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Vol. V (1974), p. 1298, fig. P4284; Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (1966), p. 158, fig. 108; Israel Sack, Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Vol. IX (1989), p. 2473, fig. P5738.