Side chair

The exuberant Rococo style flourished almost simultaneously in England and her American colonies. This chair, made in Boston, illustrates a primary means of the style's transfer and cultural diffusion: printed designs.Engraved furniture designs published during the 1750s and 1760s spread the Rococo style even more quickly and to a greater audience than did the copying of specific models. The  chair  with its Gothic-arched seat back design, is based directly on plate 14 of Thomas Chippendale's famous Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1762. Although copies of the Director were owned in New England, few examples of the region's surviving furniture relate closely to the book's designs. This chair is therefore an important and rare document of the influence of imported pattern and design books on Boston furniture. This text was adapted from Ward, et al., MFA Highlights: American Decorative Arts & Sculpture (Boston, 2006) available at www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications.html.

In addition to immigrant craftsmen and imported objects, engraved furniture designs were an important means of transmission of the Rococo style from England to America. This chair is based largely on a plate in Thomas Chippendale's "Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director" (London, 1762). Although copies of the "Director" were owned in New England, few surviving examples of furniture relate closely to the book's designs. This chair is an important exception, demonstrating the influence of imported pattern and design books in colonial Boston.