AFA Summer 2020

manner.” The term “Marlboroug” references straight front legs (rather than cabriole), with or without a vertical molded profile, a nd “St u f f back Cha i r” wa s u sed interchangeably with “backstool” to describe a type of chair with an upholstered back and seat. Backstools were among the most expensive types of chairs available to Virginia colonists, because covering them required extensive use of pricey show cloth when compared to an ordinary slip seat side cha ir. Back stools were common in bedchambers and entertaining rooms of middle- and upper-class British people. In Virginia, only the wealthiest colonists, such as the royal governor and Tidewater planters the Byrds and the Beverleys, had access to such furniture, almost exclusively ordered from England. This type of chair, which likely first arrived in Virginia in the 1750s, offered a new level of comfort when compared to ordinary side chairs. Working with Lucy Wood, former curator of furniture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Mount Vernon curators sought chairs that survived in England with their original upholstery. They discovered a set of backstools at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, formerly owned by the Duke of Devonshire. The chairs matched the Fairfax/Washington set as described in the account book: they were “Stuff ’d in the best French manner,” meaning the upholstery had stuffed, defined edges, rather than round stuffing; the seams were “wilted” or welted, which meant the seams were finished with a fabric-covered cord that made the edges harder wearing; and the chairs were finished with “2 Rows” of brass nails. The Hardwick Hall chairs even had the specified “Marlboroug” legs. The sofa proved more elusive, as the account specified that the sofa should “match” and have “2 bolsters.” No “mattress” or cushion was mentioned and there were no additional cushions, which most likely indicated that the sofa itself was narrow and the cushioning was built into the seat and welted as on the chairs. The frame of a sofa at Dumfries House in Scotland provided the simple design for the recreated sofa (Fig. 5). 2020 Antiques & Fine Art 59 Fig. 7: Humphries Silk Weaving in Sudbury, England checks for imperfections in the reproduced Saxon blue silk and worsted wool damask. Courtesy, Humphries Silk Weaving. Fig. 8: Johan Zoffany, Sir Lawrence Dundas with His Grandson, England, 1769–1770. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 inches. When the Saxon blue furniture was first installed at Belvoir, the room was papered in blue verditer wallpaper creating the correspondence seen here between the curtains and the wall color. Courtesy, Zetland Collection With careful measurements in hand, curators turned to Leroy Graves in Williamsburg, Virginia, to create and upholster the backstools (Fig. 6). Graves built up the upholstery profile over webbing and underlinen, and crafted tightly stitched rolls to define the boxy edges in the same manner as eighteenth-century craftsmen. The sofa required greater attention, as most reproduction sofas have separate mattresses. Graves paid particular attention to the distribution of the stuffing (horsehair in the