Robert D. Mussey Jr., and Clark Pearce. Rather Elegant Than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society in association with David R. Godine, 2018. xvi + 294 pp.; 338 color and bw illus., 2 appendixes, index. $50.00.
This lavishly illustrated and insightful volume will resonate with anyone who has stared longingly at Henry Sargent’s The Tea Party and longed to step into the lush and elegant interiors furnished by high-society Bostonians in the early nineteenth century. While the city stood behind New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore among the chief urban centers of the Eastern Seaboard, the authors demonstrate how the wealth, sophistication, and aspirations of her residents and the talents of her craftsmen remained undiminished.
Robert Mussey and Clark Pearce’s research on cabinetmaker Issac Vose is bound to enhance the understanding of and appreciation for Boston furniture in the late Classical style. The authors initially delved into the Vose story as part of the collaborative project “Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture,” which culminated in 2013 with a variety of exhibitions and a three-day conference at Winterthur. Mussey and Pearce presented their initial findings during that symposium and then refined the presentation in an essay titled “Classical Excellence in Boston: The Furniture of Isaac Vose, 1789–1825,” published in the Colonial Society of Massachusetts publication Boston Furniture, 1700–1900 (2016), which serves as a comprehensive record of the conference. With the caveat that the reviewer was professionally involved with the “Four Centuries” endeavor, the Vose publication serves as another achievement of a partnership spearheaded by Brock Jobe and Dennis Fiori, which produced a tremendous burst of new scholarship on cabinetmaking in the Bay State. “The Furniture of Isaac Vose” was also accompanied by an exhibition at the Massachusetts Historical Society titled Entrepreneurship and Classical Design in Boston’s South End: The Furniture of Isaac Vose and Thomas Seymour, 1815–1825 (May 11–September 14, 2018).
Containing an introduction, six chapters, and two appendixes, the authors cover considerable ground with a writing style that balances readability and content in a manner that will appeal to the layperson as well as the professional. The quality of the images throughout the volume is superb and a tribute to the talents of photographer David Bohl, whose skills in capturing flat as well as carved surfaces are matched by few practitioners of this specialty.
In the introduction and first chapter on Vose’s biography and business history, Mussey introduces the breadth of data he pieced together on the historiography of Boston Classical furniture and a cabinetmaker who once stood at the pinnacle of his craft. Mussey initially resurrected Vose through his earlier publication on Thomas Seymour, but this new volume significantly extends our understanding of Vose’s role in Boston’s early nineteenth-century furniture trade. With Mussey delving into familiar territory through his research, the reader benefits from a scholar building upon solid ground, who has an unsurpassed understanding of the extant documentary resources tied to this era.
Vose’s career was marked by the significance and success of partnerships, a salient point in this study. While he retained influential clients as an independent practitioner, Vose’s decision in 1805 to bring on English immigrant cabinetmaker Joshua Coates as a formal partner in the firm of Vose & Coates ensured his ability to meet the demands of the local gentry and compete with the talents of Seymour. Mussey shares how the partnership’s expanding role in the Boston furniture trade was paralleled by Vose’s growing wealth and commercial interests as a land owner on Boston Neck and his pursuit of opportunities for the importation and commercial sale of mahogany as well as luxury goods such as looking glasses, furnishings, and hardware. His son Isaac Vose Jr. likely apprenticed as a merchant and eventually joined the firm under the guise of Vose, Coates & Company in 1815.
The reader will note that the apex of Vose’s career was quite brief, developing during the final years of the Vose, Coates & Company partnership, continuing with Seymour’s arrival as foreman in 1819 after Coates’ death, and concluding shortly after Vose’s death in 1823. The improvement of the shop’s output is ascribed almost entirely to the influence of Coates and Seymour, rising in quality to compete with their closest competitors, such as James Barker and the partnership of Thomas Emmons and George Archbald. In addition to employing Seymour as foreman of the -partnership Isaac Vose & Son, Vose capitalized on a longstanding connection to the city’s best carver, English immigrant Thomas Wightman. Another familiar figure from Mussey’s earlier research, Wightman remained an independent and highly sought-after subcontractor throughout this era. An appendix of Vose’s known partners, journeymen, subcontractors, and apprentices underscores the collaborative nature of his shop.
With the retention of Seymour in 1819, the trajectory of Vose’s career shifted upward from the gains made under Coates’ direction. In addition to the expanding role of Vose Jr., whom Mussey credits for the -growing selection of imported goods referenced in the firm’s advertisements, the author highlights the patronage of Elizabeth and Stephen Salisbury, who commissioned a significant body of work from Vose & Son during a comprehensive renovation of their house in Worcester, Massachusetts. This order is noteworthy on many levels, not the least of which is the comprehensive manuscript collection extant at the American Antiquarian Society that describes Elizabeth’s central role in fitting out the Salisbury “Mansion House,” including the exquisite French candelabra and furniture in the English classical taste purchased from Vose & Son.
Following Vose’s death in 1823, his son continued the enterprise, albeit without any training in the cabinetmaking trade and, thus, ever more reliant on Seymour’s contributions to and oversight of that branch of the business. The firm evidently remained well connected and respected, as suggested by Vose Jr.’s receipt of a commission in 1824 to supply the City of Boston with seventy-eight pieces of furniture for the lodgings of the marquis de Lafayette. This commission is thoroughly described in the fifth chapter, which serves as an important case study for the furnishing of private spaces designed for public celebration in the early nineteenth century.
Of the furniture ordered for Lafayette’s apartments, a rosewood grained and parcel- gilt Grecian couch is the sole survivor. This splendid example of Seymour’s savvy adaptation of the English Regency style graces the cover of the book and seemingly contradicts the volume’s title while also belying the conservative taste of many Bostonians. As the authors deduce, the couch’s atypical ornamentation was likely intended to blend with the overall glitz of the installation, which was replete with gilt lamps, mirrors, and drapery ornaments. The city commissioned this ostentatious display to recognize the importance of the visitor while also paying tribute to the sophistication and resources of her residents and craftsmen.
The couch is noteworthy on many levels. Wightman’s name is inscribed on the rear of the front rail, and the object therefore serves as an -important touchstone for identifying the carver’s work in this vein. Of broader significance to the historian of interior design, the extant receipted bills provide a comprehensive illustration of the furnishings, lighting, carpeting, and drapery deemed essential to fill the rooms retained by the city for Lafayette’s use and enjoyment. We are fortunate that the couch survived with a swatch of the original upholstery, a stamped red plush; the receipted bill also references chairs covered with an orange plush. A sofa attributed to Vose & Son in the Winterthur collection retains an original show cover of stamped red wool plush, providing further documentation for the appeal of this material in Boston.
Recognizing the significance of Lafayette’s triumphant tour of the United States and the extensive survival of other souvenirs of the general’s visit to Boston, we long to know the whereabouts of the other furnishings supplied by Vose & Son, which were sold by the city after his departure. These items were surely coveted for their connection to the illustrious Frenchman. Perhaps this volume will lead to the rediscovery of additional items from the invoice. Furniture historians will particularly benefit from the recovery of a chair from the set ordered en suite with the couch.
The final chapter, authored by Pearce, describes the opportunity to build upon the documentary and physical evidence that ties Isaac Vose to -partners, foreman, journeymen, and subcontractors and defines the evolving approach to design, materials, construction, and carving. While the breadth of the book suggests an extensive body of work firmly connected to Vose’s shop through labels, signatures, or bills of sale, the first appendix lists the rather limited quantity of extant furniture tied to the shop, which is less than three dozen items. The reader may question whether such a modest number warrants the exercise of such a publication, but the authors are able to draw in a considerable range of attributed work based on their close examination of the material. For example, Pearce’s evaluation of eight pieces of Vose & Son furniture marked with the firm’s stencil links a larger body of work tied to Seymour’s involvement in the shop as foreman.
This volume continues a twenty-year tradition of monographic explorations of leading American cabinetmakers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Mussey and Pearce’s study stands apart, however, in light of the complete obscurity in which Vose has dwelled during more than a century of publications on historic American craftsmen. Unlike the recent volumes on John Townsend, Duncan Phyfe, Thomas Seymour, and Samuel McIntire that shed new light on well-known artisans, Issac Vose has been almost entirely forgotten in spite of his tremendous popularity and productivity in the first decades of the nineteenth century.
The propensity for monographs on American cabinetmakers is perhaps ironic in light of the preference in American material culture studies to focus on the context of the Atlantic world and the full diversity of the American
experience. A monographic catalogue carries the inherent risk from the myopia of focusing exclusively on the career of a single craftsman in a single city and period. What can the reader extract from these studies that is pertinent to a broader understanding of the era’s worldwide connectivity? Mussey and Pearce meet this challenge by reinforcing the intrinsic globalism of the furniture trade through the immigrant craftsmen, imported designs and materials, and international trade that the Vose firm required to generate a sophisticated output for a cultured clientele. The discussion of Vose’s broad commercial pursuits may ultimately serve as more significant to decorative arts historians than the aesthetics and construction of his furniture. The authors’ description of Vose’s accomplishments in the wider realm of international economics elevates this volume above the standard investigation of the cabinetmaking field.
Matthew A. Thurlow
The Decorative Arts Trust