Object: Spindle-back chair (1680-1710)

A functional chair like this spindle-back chair was ubiquitous in 17th-century Dutch households, both in Amsterdam and New Amsterdam. Sturdy but not too heavy, such side chairs were easily lifted away from their spot along the wall to be carried wherever needed. In the Netherlands such chairs were made by a specific group of artisans called stoelendraaiers or turners, trained in shaping wood on a lathe.

Among the group of about twelve chairmakers or turners that arrived in New Amsterdam from Northern Europe, was David Wessels (1654-1678). He emigrated to the new world from Esens, East Friesland and acquired a lot of land for a house right near Fort Amsterdam to set up shop in the center of the growing city. Apprentices, such as Claes Gerritsen who trained with Wessels, learned their trade from these first-generation turners. They continued making chairs of similar style for decades until competition from New England and English imports changed the spindle-back chair’s design.

The development and persistence of the New Amsterdam chairmaking tradition is testament to the vitality of Dutch trade and culture and its adaptability to the changing economic circumstances in New Netherland.

For further reading: Erik Gronning, Early New York Turned Chairs, in Luke Beckerdite, ed., American Furniture 2001 The Chipstone Foundation

Metropolitan Museum summary:

This chair ornamented with turnings of repeated barrel, flattened ball, and baluster shapes, is of a distinctive type associated with areas of Dutch cultural influence in New York and northern New Jersey. Its overall design and turned motifs, including the urn-and-flame finials, are based on a form of chair that was popular in the Netherlands during the second half of the seventeenth century. This type of turned chair derived its basic format from that of fashionable seventeenth-century upholstered chairs.

Spindle back chairs were made by a specially skilled Carpenter  known as a Turner  .

Reference:

Title: Spindle-back chair

Date: 1680–1710

Geography: Probably made in New York, New York, United States

Culture: American – Dutch Colonial

Medium: Cherry, ash

Dimensions: 35 5/8 x 18 1/2 x 15in. (90.5 x 47 x 38.1cm)

Object Number: 1997.68