Arm Chair (no. 2604)
Item
Title
Arm Chair (no. 2604)
Creator
Gustave Stickley Company or United Crafts
Medium
Ash
Object No.
2018.19.11
Credit line
Gift of Gregg and Monique Seibert
Description
Like its corresponding rocker (no. 2603), Stickley’s companies produced this arm chair from 1900 through 1904, a fact that is evident in the factory inventories. That not every form designed in this period enjoyed such a long production run is evident of the broader trends of Stickley’s production and design process, in which popular forms continued in production while those which did not find a ready market were phased out, sometimes quickly. For example, the floral tabourettes that helped launch the catalog New Furniture from the Workshop of Gustave Stickley–like the Celadine Tea Table (no. 27)–were mostly abandoned sometime in 1901, even while forms like the Chalet Plant Stand (no. 6) continued production through 1904. A closer look at the company’s sales records and inventories reveals that each new catalog was in some sense a trial balloon, a means to increase and refine the shop’s offerings rather than a complete record of everything they were making at a given moment in time.
Associated names
Gustav Stickley
Provenance
Purchased, en suite, by an undisclosed buyer, ca. 1901, then by descent. Dalton’s American Decorative Arts and Antiques (September 2001). Cathers and Dembrosky (by 2002). Gregg and Monique Seibert (2002).