Posted 10 years ago
SLBurnell
(2 items)
My mom acquired this old rocking chair at an estate sale when we were all very small. I instantly fell in love with it and I loved rocking in it. However, time passed, we all grew up and the chair was consigned to collecting dust in the basement. After I graduated from college and had begun a career and decided it was time for me to move out and move on, I decided that I wanted this old chair for my own. My mother gave it to me and I lovingly fixed it up and took it to my new home, where I lived until the landlord sold the house to be razed in 2013. When I moved again, it came with me as a treasured heirloom and now sits beside a bookcase in the bedroom of my new apartment.
I love it because it's probably of mid-19th century vintage and probably has a story to tell. It's small and delicate and absolutely beautiful and I am proud to own it. My bedroom is done in 19th century decor (OK, not the carpet that you can see in the photo, but oh, well, it covers up very ugly linoleum underneath) and this chair fits right in. No idea how old it is. I've been told that it could be as early as 1850, which would make sense to me. If anyone can fill me in on when and where this might have been made, I am all ears! Is it Shaker or not? The seat is not original, it was caned back 50+ years ago after we got the chair.
One more thing to add: the right side piece of wood that is the rocker on the bottom is made of birds eye maple. But the rest of it is made of rather simple, nondescript wood, suggesting to me that someone assembled this from scraps of wood that were lying around in their shop or something. I may just be fantasizing, but it does seem odd that only one of the rockers is made of birds eye maple and the rest are very plain wood.