McKinley Chair Pair

Designed between 1894-96 by David Wolcott Kendall (1851–1910) for Phoenix Furniture Company, Grand Rapids, MI.
My introduction to Kendall was a few years ago when I sold another chair by him to the Brooklyn Museum.
The Museum’s decorative arts curator, Barry Harwood, had taken on the task of mining patent filings from the 1890’s to seek out the origins of a comparatively rarer and virtually undocumented work by the same designer. His “thank you” to me came in the form of a tour of the Museum’s storage area where – among lots of other treasures – sat their very handsome McKinley Chair.
Last year I found a matched pair representing two different eras in design evolution. The key differences between the two were a change in placement of the bottom stretchers and transition from pierced to pressed caning. The one pictured is the younger of the two which was missing it’s caning entirely. The other – presumably from the 1890s – still has its original seat and back caning.
The last photo is borrowed from NYC’s Met Museum.