Detail of Hitchcock Chair 1935 - 1942

Genevieve Sherlock created this painting of a Hitchcock chair detail with watercolor and graphite. Though chairs may seem like humble objects, they can reveal a great deal about social life and the history of design. The Hitchcock chair, mass-produced in Connecticut beginning in the 1820s, was an early instance of American industrial design. Lambert Hitchcock's factory employed a division of labor that was quite new for the time. Ornamentation by young women and children accounted for much of its aesthetic appeal. The stenciled motifs on the chairs reflect an aesthetic shift toward neoclassicism. Sherlock painted this detail nearly a century later. Was she interested in the chair's historical significance? Or perhaps in reviving an older style of decoration? These are the kinds of questions that historians ask. To address them, we might consult primary sources such as the Hitchcock company records or period advertisements. These would help us understand the social and institutional contexts that made this chair such a ubiquitous object.