Fine Pair of Neoclassical Side Chairs, 1st Half 19th Century

Pair of neoclassical side chairs. Mahogany with carved details.

A pair of Art Deco side chairs. Stained beechwood with fluted leg details.

Dated to the early 19th century, this pair of lightweight Russian armchairs stand on elegantly tapered sabre legs and feature low, arched backs and turned arms decorated with acanthu...

“I know of no other chair like the single [sic] ‘lyre back’ one. . . . I certainly recognize it as a Boston chair considering all the individual elements, but the combination is particularly elegant.” So wrote noted scholar of Boston furniture Page Talbott when a set of four chairs of this design originally surfaced in the 1980s. Although the existence of four chairs in a specific pattern might imply that the chairs were originally part of a larger set, no additional chairs of this form have appeared in the intervening years. The lyre became a popular motif during the Neo-Classical period, and is frequently encountered as the back splat of klismos chairs, in no example more familiar than in a group of Duncan Phyfe chairs...