The Important Wister Family Brown-Painted Scroll-Carved Comb-Back Windsor High Chair, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Circa 1761

Daniel Wister (1739-1805) m. Lowry Jones (1742-1804);

Sarah 'Sally' Wister (1761-1804), daughter;

Charles Jones Wister (1782-1865), brother m. Rebecca Bullock (1782-1812);

William Wynne Wister (1807-1898), son m. Hannah Lewis Wilson (1807-1879); 

Rachel Wilson Wister (1835-1914), daughter m. William Barton Rogers (1834-1893)

Mabel Wister Rogers (1872-1957), daughter m. Edgar Wright Baird (1872-1957);

Mariam Wister Baird (1900-1939), daughter m. Charles Jared Ingersoll (1894-1988);

Gainor Ingersoll Miller (1929-2017), daughter.

With its exceptional proportions, delicate turnings, untouched surface and full family history, this remarkable high chair is one of the best surviving examples of its form. Fewer than ten ball foot versions of this style of high chair survive, with perhaps only one or two chair-makers in Philadelphia making this specialized form during the late 1750s through the 1760s.¹The chair was likely commissioned for the birth of Daniel and Lowry Wister’s daughter Sarah “Sally” in 1761. She is principally known as the author of Sally Wister's Journal, written when she was sixteen. It is a firsthand account of life in the nearby countryside during the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777–78.

¹ The other known high chairs include an example at Winterthur Museum (acc. no. 64.924) (Nancy Goyne Evans, American Windsor Chairs: Specialized Forms, (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), p. 151, fig. 2-17); Mabel Bradey Garvan Collection (acc. no. 1930.2364) (Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of American Seating Furniture Chairs and Beds from the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University, (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976), p. 193, no. 171); Dietrich American Foundation (acc. no. 8.1.4.HRD.580) (Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury, (Framingham, MA: Old America Campany Publishers, 1928), no. 2507); Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury, no. 2530; Colonial Williamsburg (acc. no. 1953-56)(Charles Santore, The Windsor Style in America: A Pictorial Study of the History and Regional Characteristics of the Most Popular Furniture Form of Eighteenth-Century America, 1730-1830, (Philadelphia, PA: Running Press, 1981), p. 170, no. 222); Fendelman collection (Santore, Windsor Style in America, no. 223); lastly is a related example in this sale.