Joseph McHugh Arts & Crafts Mission Oak Dining Chairs Mackmurdo Stickley Roycroft a Set of Four

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A rare, wonderful and incredibly rare set of four Arts & Crafts dining chairs by Joseph McHugh. Three of the … Read more A rare, wonderful and incredibly rare set of four Arts & Crafts dining chairs by Joseph McHugh. Three of the chairs are from the same estate on the North Shore of Long Island, New York, the fourth with a different seat, is a marriage to the set.

Joseph P. McHugh was the self-proclaimed originator and commercializer of Mission-style furniture in America. In 1898, the New York furniture manufacturer saw photographs of a simple, handcrafted wooden chair built by A.J. Forbes for the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco. McHugh copied the design, believed it resembled the aesthetic of Spanish missions in colonial California, and released a commercially mass-produced line of furniture under the "McHugh Mission" name. McHugh is credited with popularizing and first using the term "Mission furniture".

Part of the American Arts and Crafts movement, the chairs feature simple horizontal and vertical lines, flat panels accentuating prominent quarter sawn oak wood grain, Mackmurdo feet and a heavy, unadorned, functional construction built as a reaction against Victorian excesses. Gustav Stickley produced Arts and Crafts movement furniture often referred to as being in the Mission Style, though Stickley dismissed the term as misleading.

A Mackmurdo foot (often spelled Macmurdo foot) is a signature shaped furniture foot found on Arts and Crafts movement pieces, named after English architect and designer Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo. Mackmurdo founded The Century Guild in London in 1882 and worked closely with William Morris, heavily influencing the aesthetic of English and American Arts and Crafts design. See less