Lounge

Details

Descriptive Terms

couches (reclining furniture)
multiple-seating furniture
beech (wood)
Lounge

Label

"Cherished Possessions": Caned seating furniture first appeared in London in the 1660s, and by the 1680s caned chairs had become the most popular type on the market. In the seven-year period between 1697 and 1704, more than 14,600 caned chairs were exported to the American colonies, many to New England.
It is unclear who was the first owner of this couch. By the eighteenth century it belonged to the Reverend Thomas Smith, minister in Falmouth, Maine, from 1726 until his death nearly seventy years later, in May of 1795. According to family tradition, the old man died peacefully on this very couch, both the couch and its occupant relics of an earlier era.

Maker

Unknown

Credit Line

Bequest of Helen Webb Wicker

Accession Number

1971.345

Places

City of London (London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom) [borough]