Unicorns decorate the tablet back of this Baltimore chair, originally from the 12-piece suite eventually owned by Arunah Abell. He was a publisher and philanthropist, founder of the Baltimore Sun, and pioneer in the use of the telegraph to transmit news. Attribution of the chair rests upon its similarity to others that the Finlay brothers made for the White House, based on the design of architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe during the James Madison administration. When the British marched on Washington in 1814, setting the White House ablaze, the president’s fashionable Grecian-style furniture was lost. However, surviving drawings suggest the similarity between the Finlays’ White House chairs and those of the Abell suite. The group offers a high-style precedent for a regional form that was regularly produced through the 1820s and 1830s.