Wainscot armchair

This armchair belongs to a distinctive group of wainscot chairs made in Philadelphia and its environs during the first quarter of the eighteenth century that display pierced and scalloped crest rails, rounded finials, and finely articulated turnings. Wainscot chairs were used as "great chairs," or seats of authority and exclusive privilege, for wealthy and high-ranking political and religious leaders. Chairs of this type traditionally have been associated with Chester County on the basis of a few documented examples.