A new chapter was written last weekend in an ongoing shaggy-paw story concerning the burgeoning value of a rare furniture style. The chronicle - involving Philadelphia furniture made for Gen. John Cadwalader, a colonial patron of the arts and Revolutionary War hero - was advanced at a New York auction when a 200-year-old wing chair with furry looking feet and a frame riddled with nail holes was sold for the highest price ever paid at auction for a piece of furniture - $2.75 million. Since 1974, six side chairs and a table with carved ''hairy-paw'' feet and the same Philadelphia origins have surfaced in England, Italy and Maine; all were later auctioned at Sotheby's for record prices. The British originated the hairy-paw style, then disdained it, banishing it to the provinces, to Ireland and to the colonies. The Philadelphia-made wing chair that was sold last weekend was found closer to home - in a shed on an estate in Chester County, Pa. According to John Snyder, a decorative-arts historian of Lancaster, Pa., the increasingly bouyant market activity in American 18th-century furniture had prompted the chair's owner - who has not been identified - to seek Mr. Snyder's help in documenting its pedigree.
Mr. Snyder found thatthis rarest of all forms of hairy-paw Chippendale furniture could trace its lineage to works ordered by Cadwalader from one of pre-revolutionary Philadelphia's most prestigious cabinetmakers, Thomas Affleck. The auction last weekend attracted a standing-room-only crowd, including more than a score of the most prominent American-furniture enthusiasts - collectors, dealers, scholars and curators. Three hours into the sale, the well-worn chair frame -shown without upholstery - appeared at the center of Sotheby's revolving stage. After three minutes of fierce bidding between two dealers, John L. Marion, Sotheby's chairman, brought down his gavel on the sale of the chair to Leigh Keno, a New York dealer, as applause resounded. ''It's a great chair,'' said Morrison Heckscher, curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most collectors and dealers interviewed agreed, citing the chair's rarity, its pedigree and the quality of its carving as more than sufficient reason for the chair's record-breaking price.
However, several others questioned why such a high price would be paid for any piece of furniture, let alone a chair without proper upholstery and with legs awash with carved leaves, scrolls and hair on beastlike feet that some people insist are outright ugly. Harold Sack, who heads Israel Sack, a major New York dealer, never raised a finger during the bidding. He was more questioning than critical in his comments after the sale, saying: ''Is the chair beautiful? Is it symbolic of America? Is it successful as an art form? Would it have brought this price if it were not connected with the Cadwaladers?'' When asked why he had not bid, Mr. Sack said: ''I only go all out when my instinct says push.'' Joe Kindig 3d, an American-furniture dealer in York, Pa., said that of all hairy-paw furniture, the side chairs are the most successful. ''The wing chair might be considered slightly awkward, esthetically,'' he said. ''You are dealing here with a piece of furniture that expresses the English taste.
It is a very brilliant statement. Maybe one might say that it is more difficult to accommodate the easy chair form in American furniture.'' Richard Dietrich, a Philadelphia industrialist and collector who owns a piece of hairy-paw furniture, was more positive. ''I would hate to judge the chair by its price,'' he said. ''I think it has merit on its own. I think that the chair is one of the best documented pieces of furniture that there is. It is the highest expression of Chippendale in the colonies in the high style. I don't think that the Cadwalader name added tremendously to the price.'' Mr. Snyder, who attended the auction, discussed the chair's pedigree, beginning with the 1770 bill presented to Cadwalader by Thomas Affleck. The chair remained in the Cadwalader family until the 1950's, Mr. Snyder said, when a descendant, Beatrix Jones Farrand, gave it as a gift to the mother-in-law of the man who consigned it to Sotheby's. William W. Stahl Jr., who heads Sotheby's American furnishings department, compared the sale of the wing chair to one with ball-and-claw feet that sold at Sotheby's last fall for $1.1 million.
''It deserved to bring twice what the other chair brought in October,'' he asserted. ''How often does a piece of furniture come up for sale like this on which you can absolutely trace the history? It's the supreme example of the form. We know when it was made, why and by whom.'' Mr. Stahl said that Cadwalader's house in Philadelphia ''was the closest thing to a palace we had in this country at the time.''He added that George Washington did not share Cadwalader's taste for rococo opulence and hairy-paw furniture. Neither did most other Philadelphians, one reason why this lion's-paw look was a furniture fashion that failed in Philadelphia on the eve of the Revolution, increasing its rarity. This rarity, and the quality of the carving, has proved attractive to an elite corps of collectors and to the Metropolitan Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware and to Colonial Williamsburg. That the Cadwalader wing-chair was auctioned without upholstery was yet another oddity of the sale.
''We didn't want to upholster the chair because it had been reupholstered so many times,'' Mr. Stahl said. ''So we made this slipcover.'' The cover sits in the frame and is closed in the back with Velcro tabs. The chair eclipsed all previous prices for furniture sold at auction, the highest of which was for a cabinet by Guillaume Beneman used at Versailles during the reign of Louis XVI, which was sold in 1984 in Monte Carlo for 15 million French francs, then equivalent to $1.6 million. Photo of Cadwalader wing chair $ Non-members pay 10% surchargeJoin now! Shipping Add to list About this item Beautiful 7.5-foot billiard table High quality, scratch-resistant Rail coating improves durability, parlor style drop pockets Strong and durable with a classic style feel Description Member reviews & questions Policies & plans Description With scratch-resistant, parlor style drop pockets and ball and claw legs, this is classic style 7.5-foot billiard table will be the centerpiece of any game room.
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