Armchair

Maker unknown

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1800-15

Mahogany, mahogany veneer, ash

Gift of Sewell C. Biggs; 1992.101

This armchair, along with two accompanying side chairs also in the Biggs Museum’s collection, exhibits many of the new decorative techniques favored by consumers of the Federal period. Instead of the curvaceous designs of Baroque- and Rococo-period furniture, Federal furniture is rectilinear and slim with fine tapered components. Federal-period cabinetmakers often relied on shallow relief carvings and inlayed details to decorate their delicate furniture forms.