Jan and John Maggs Antiques

The Odd Couple

Several years ago a dealer friend, knowing of our fondness for banister back chairs, particularly those made in the workshop of the King family of Deerfield, brought a pair of them to a show at which we were both exhibiting and offered them to us. On our way to her van to see them, she told us that she had just “picked them from a Connecticut barn”, but - in the same breath -  confessed that the chairs had “a little problem.” 

As soon as we saw them, their recent history became obvious. As frequently happened to country furniture, they had been stored for decades on a dirt floor. As one might guess, when a chair is stored this way, the end grain of the posts acts as a channel for moisture in the dirt, and the ends of the legs decay. This unfortunate circumstance accounts for many of the height-challenged early chairs that one encounters. 

A Deerfield banister back chair from our collection, illustrating normal foot decay.

This case was a little different, however. While one of the chairs had been stored right side up and had lost about three inches from the bottom of its legs, the other had been placed on it -- seat-to-seat. Because it had been upside down, its feet were intact, but it had suffered the loss of much of its crest and finials. 

Another photo of the chair above, with the crest and finials reduced electronically to simulate the condition of the other chair.

Still, it was a true pair, and, in fact, it presented an interesting woodworking challenge. We took the chairs home and restored the top of one and the bottom of the other. In the process, we gained respect for the form and added two attractive examples of an important local artifact to our personal collection.

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