Gingerbread and snippets of embroidery, filligrane and fan painting
—Horace Walpole, 1790s
The colorful, painted chair seen here was among the most ambitious pieces of American furniture made in the early Neoclassical style. Part of a large set commissioned for a wealthy merchant in Salem, Massachusetts, the chair features draped garlands of flowers and bright colors inspired by newly published paintings of Greece and Italy. It also has the thin tapered legs and bold geometric silhouette common in Neoclassical furniture. These motifs and pastel color combinations often fell prey to criticism for appearing too delicate and feminine. English commentator Horace Walpole was among the first to decry the style, likening it to the overly sweet products of the pastry kitchen or ladies’ parlor. Nevertheless, Neoclassical furniture enjoyed great popularity in the United States for decades, in part because of America’s political alliance with France instead of England in the early nineteenth century.