American Furniture, Folk & Decorative Arts

Provenance: Estate of Virginia H. Knauer, Washington, D.C.

This pair of chairs descended in one of the most prominent early Jewish families of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Elijah Etting (1724-1778) was born in Frankfurt, Germany and arrived in York, Pennsylvania in 1758. He is thought to be the first Jewish settler in the York County. Etting married Shinah Solomon (1744-1822) of Lancaster in 1759 and established a successful store. The couple was renowned for their hospitality and generosity and Elijah for his tireless will, honesty and remarkable business acumen. A portrait of Mrs. Elijah Etting, 1792, by Charles Peale Polk (1767-1822) resides at the Baltimore Museum of Art (accession no. 68.14). In 1780, after the death of Elijah, Shinah Etting moved her family of eight children to Baltimore, Maryland. Two of her sons, Solomon and Reuben, became especially prominent and influential in Baltimore business and politics and successful in advocating Jewish civil rights. The family papers are held in the American Jewish History Society Archives, New York.

The chairs descended from Shinah Etting to son Reuben Etting (1762-1848). Reuben, who joined the Revolutionary Army at 19, was wounded and captured at the Battle of Charleston, and became a Captain of the Independent Blues in 1798. President Jefferson later appointed him Marshall of the State of Maryland. Reuben married Frances Gratz in 1794. The chairs descended to their son Benjamin (1798-1875), who married Harriet Marx in 1830, to their son Joseph Marx (1836-1915), who married Margaretta Emmelie Pope in 1864, to their son, Frank Marx Etting (1867- 1932), who married Clara Newman Fitzsimmons in 1907.

Samuel T. Freeman & Co., Public Auction, March 9, 1955, lot 527.

The lot is accompanied by bill of sale.