Artist:Herter Brothers
Medium: Wood, gilt, fabric
Geograhical Locations:
Dates:ca. 1878
Dimensions: 34 1/4 x 17 x 19 in. (87 x 43.2 x 48.3 cm)
Collections:
Accession Number: 2000.4
Image: CUR.2000.4.jpg,
Catalogue Description: Side Chair, gilded maple,bird's-eye maple, mahogany and rosewood (marquetry), ash (secondary wood), red and black paint, modern upholstery. Delicately proportioned turned, incised, carved and inlaid chair in the Anglo- Japanese taste. Simple square-profile upholstered seat. Gilded square-profile rear legs splayed backward rise to intricately turned back stiles highlighted with red paint capped with graduated conical finials. Stiles connected by two pairs of narrow square-profile horizontal braces above seat and at crest. Five short turned spindles connect lower braces and four connect upper pair. Rectangular bird's-eye maple marquery panel, framed by red and black painted borders, at center of back supported by square-profile vertical braces that rise from lower cross brace and intersect upper pair of braces and that curve to form flat crest rail with symmetrical carved and cut-out leafy motifs inside each upper curved corner. Panel decorated with asymmetrical Japanese-style floral decoration: bifurcated flowering and leafy branch rises from proper left lower corner of panel with butterfly at proper right upper corner. Turned and incised downward tapering front legs highlighted with red paint rise to square blocks below seat rail. Narrow square-profile horizontal stretchers below seat rails connected to seat rails by three pairs of short turned spindles on sides and front. CONDITION - Overall losses to gilding and painted areas. Marquetry panel on back upholstered over; tack holes now around perimeter. Surface conserved by Pascale Patrice and seat conserved by Nancy Britton, both from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (summer/Fall 2000) . See cosevation reports for frame and upholstery in file.