Whitehorne House

This is one of a pair of ball and claw foot side chairs in the Whitehorne House Museum collection, originally part of a larger set. They have served as the touchstone of what a typical Chippendale chair by John Townsend might look like. The overall effect of these chairs is one of strength. The base is particularly robust, with its boldly carved ball and claw feet and thick unchamfered rear legs joined soundly by block and ring turned stretchers; a standard feature of eighteenth-century Massachusetts and Rhode Island chairs. The arched section at the center of the crest rail is crosshatched, a favorite decorative device of Newport craftsmen. During the second half of the eighteenth century, chairs with interlaced c-scroll splats were popular with cabinetmakers along the east coast. The splats on this pair of side chairs are based on English printed prototypes, as was a common practice in each of the major colonial port cities.

Commemorative clock depicting George Washington. With white enamel dial contained in a rectangular plinth surmounted by a gilt eagle with the motto "E Pluribus unum" flanked on the right by a standing figure of George Washington in military costume with inscription on swag, rectangular base with figural commemorative panel on the front of the base that depicts Washington as Cincinnatus, the famed citizen-statesman of Rome in the fifth century, B.C. The whole raised on engine turned bun feet, silk lining on interior of hinged works cover.

This armchair is one of a group of three that demonstrates a strong Dutch influence on some of the earliest furniture made in Newport, RI. It also speaks to connections, perhaps less well known, with local Native American craft production. Unique to the Whitehorne example is the braided cornhusk seat, possibly woven by local Wampanoag or Narragansett weavers. This is an unusual feature found in other early chairs associated with Little Compton, which remained a fairly isolated agricultural outpost into the twentieth century but had early ties through families such as the Browns, who owned this chair, to nearby Aquidneck Island and the urban centers of Portsmouth and Newport, as well as to local Native American craftsmen.
The red paint with gold decoration dates to the Victorian period; it covers a layer of blue paint, date unknown, but also not likely original.