Rising Sun Armchair George Washington used this chair for nearly three months of the Federal Convention's continuous sessions. James Madison reported Benjamin Franklin saying, "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun." Made by John Folwell in 1779 Mahogany, height: 153.5 cm, width: 77.5 cm, depth: 58.2 cm Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA
More than the chair, I wanted to get more information about the craftsman and cabinet maker John Folwell. Thus far, I haven’t really found out very much except that he was a Quaker and worked closely with John Norman whom I think did the actual carvings. Apparently, Folwell had about 200 designs which Norman was to etch but nothing really came of it due to the amount of turmoil during the revolutionary war days. I’m going to keep looking around to see what other cabinets or chairs he produced or if any were preserved throughout history......
David Rittenhouse, Orrery, 1770; John Folwell and Parnell Gibbs, Furniture Case: mahogany, glass, bronze, steel. (The University of Pennsylvania Art Collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
The Nation’s Promises as the Sun "Perhaps Folwell was more of a symbolist than anyone knew… For only “half a sun” seems to have symbolic meaning for the new nation, too. Perhaps it acts as a sort of caveat…not necessarily a Sun in the reversed position…but not wholly the full victory or blessing of life that the Sun card represents. That’s because there’s a kind of stain, an unattended eclipse that shadows the birth of the nation…" “When George Washington presided over the 1787 convention that brought about the Constitution, he sat in a chair designed by Philadelphia furniture-maker John Folwell. Carved from mahogany and topped with the image of half a sun, it caught the framers’ attention. The sun’s ambiguity seemed to stand for the uncertain outcome of the debates. As Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said, “I have, often and often in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that [sun] behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” This optimistic resolution would seem to square with a vision of the birth of the United States as a special, emancipatory enterprise. After all, Folwell even put a liberty cap (a symbol for a freed slave) over the sun.”