AFA Summer 2021

Summer 90 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com A Compass Bottom’d Chair by Christopher Storb B y the time of his death in early 1929, the Philadelphia wool merchant Howard Reifsnyder’s collection was well known in the field of American decorative arts, made possible through a number of means. He provided scholarly access to his collection at his 3914 Walnut Street residence in West Philadelphia; and he made loans of numerous objects to the Pennsylvania Museum (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art) and to the historic house it administered in East Fairmount Park, Mount Pleasant. The sale of his collection by American Art Galleries during four days in April 1929, months before the stock market crash that year, was a momentous success, with stunning prices achieved that would be unmatched for decades. In the catalogue of the sale, three Philadelphia compassed side chairs with blocked front rails with shells carved in the center of the rails were listed as lot numbers 653, 654, and 655. The chairs were represented as being from the same set and were illustrated together, though Fig. 1: The “Reifsnyder chairs,” lots 653-655. Colonial Furniture, The Superb Collection of The Late Howard Reifsnyder . Catalogue, American Art Association, Inc. 1929.

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