Artist/Maker: Lawrence Allwine

Created: 1798

Origin/Purchase: Philadelphia

Materials: black paint on unidentified wood

Dimensions: 36.5 × 135.9 × 58.4 (14 3/8 × 53 1/2 × 23 in.)

Location: Cabinet

Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; by descent to Thomas Jefferson Randolph; by descent to Caroline Ramsay Randolph; by bequest to R.T.W. Duke; by descent to Helen and Mary Duke; by purchase to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1951

Accession Number: 1951-1

Historical Notes: On April 2, 1798, Jefferson purchased a Windsor bench from a noted Philadelphia maker of Windsor furniture, Lawrence Allwine. He noted in his memorandum book, "gave Lawrence Allwine ord. on Barnes for 26 D. for a stick sopha and mattras." The couch, with turned stretchers and six bamboo legs (later shortened) with casters, was eventually placed near his chair to support his legs while he read or wrote in the Cabinet at Monticello. Both ends were cut out to allow the round bottom of the chair to fit against the couch.

Initially, Jefferson may have used the Windsor chair with a sack back Windsor chair with a writing arm, but later he used the bench with a revolving, or Whirligig, chair that was made by Thomas Burling.^[1]

Once some shipping difficulties were resolved, the bench presumably arrived at Monticello later in 1798.^[2] In 1800, Jefferson wrote his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, to find a book catalogue, and said that it might be found "under the window by the red couch in the Cabinet."^[3]

Allwine, who also made his own patented paint, made Windsor chairs in Philadelphia between 1786 and 1800. In the Aurora, May 3, 1800, Allwine advertised that he made paints for ships, buildings, and furniture superior for its brilliance and durability. The "stick sopha" was Jefferson's only known purchase from him.

- Text from Stein, Worlds, 264