Queen Anne

The Queen Anne style arrived in the American colonies from England in the 1720s and flourished until the emergence of the Chippendale style in the 1750s — though in rural areas, simplified Queen Anne forms continued well into the 1780s. The style is characterized above all by the cabriole leg ending in a pad foot (as opposed to the Chippendale ball-and-claw), which gives Queen Anne furniture its characteristic fluid, elastic quality. Chair backs feature the vase- or fiddle-shaped splat — a single central carved element flanked by open space — rather than the pierced and elaborately carved splats of Chippendale. American regional variations are significant. New England Queen Anne — particularly from Boston and Connecticut — tends toward restrained elegance in maple or walnut with minimal ornament; a Boston dressing table or a Connecticut cherry highboy in original surface is a serious collector's piece. Philadelphia Queen Anne is the most refined, with graceful proportions and occasionally carved trifid feet rather than pad. Newport Queen Anne (by the Goddard-Townsend families) is rare and highly valuable. New York Queen Anne is less common and often characterized by heavier proportions. The late 19th-century Queen Anne Revival in architecture brought a parallel revival in furniture forms, producing spindle-back chairs and cottage furniture in the style — quite different from the original period furniture and generally of modest collector value.