Side Chair, c. 1770
Attributed to Benjamin Randolph, American
Mahogany, white cedar
38 7/16 x 23 3/4 x 21 5/8 inches (97.7 x 60.3 x 54.9 cm)
Purchased with the Fiske Kimball Fund, the John T. Morris Fund, and with funds contributed by Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest, The Richard Chilton Foundation, H. Richard Dietrich, Jr., Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Fitz Eugene Dixon, Jr., Mrs. E. Newbold Smith, Charlene Sussel, Anne H. and Frederick Vogel III, Andrew M. Rouse, and Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Booth, 2003
2003-108-1
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Side Chair

The Museum has recently acquired an elaborate eighteenth-century side chair commissioned by the Revolutionary War hero General John Cadwalader (1742–1786) and his fashionable wife Elizabeth (Lloyd), whose spectacular Philadelphia town house—among the most extravagantly decorated in the American colonies—was a critical meeting place for the Continental Congress and eventual signers of the United States Constitution.

The side chair is exemplary of the exuberant style known as "Philadelphia Rococo" and is distinguished by exquisite carving and its characteristic "hairy paw" feet. It was made about 1770, most likely in the shop of one of the city's premier cabinetmakers, Benjamin Randolph (1721–1791). It is among five examples known to survive from a suite of twelve that once graced the intimate back parlor of the Cadwalader house, which once stood on Second Street between Spruce and Walnut in Philadelphia. The side chair is distinguished from the other four by the fact that it retains all of its original component parts and a period finish.

"We are thrilled to acquire this remarkable work and are so grateful to the Chilton Foundation, the Museum's American Art Committee and our other generous supporters who contributed funds enabling us to acquire it," said Anne d’Harnoncourt, Director of the Museum. "The elegant chair can now come home to Philadelphia where it will help to provide our visitors the vivid sense of the dynamic moment when the artists and craftsmen of this city defined the height of its eighteenth-century style."

The chair will be reupholstered according to evidence recorded on the original receipts of 1770–72 that detail its original appearance. It will then be reunited with the furniture from the Museum's Cadwalader Collection on view in the Powel Parlor (Gallery 287). Along with spectacular silver and family portraits, the Cadwalader collection represents the world's most comprehensive collection of furnishings documenting this fanciful decorative style that reached its apogee in Philadelphia on the eve of the American Revolution.