Review by Gerald W. R. Ward
The Art of Display: The American Pedestal, 1830–1910, Conner-Rosenkranz LLC, with a foreword by Joel Rosenkranz and an introduction by R. Ruthie Dibble and Avis Berman

Works on individual furniture forms, with the exception of chairs and clocks, are not especially common. There are many exceptions, of course—books on federal-period card tables and Pennsylvania German chests come to mind, as does the Yale series of collection catalogues based on types of objects—but many forms still await their monograph. This slim volume on nineteenth-century American pedestals is thus a welcome addition to the literature. Short, well-written, and superbly illustrated, this digestible publication allows us to see the evolution of a single form in the changing context of its time. Moreover, the authors examine the social history as well as the artistic nature of the form.

As is the case with picture frames, pedestals are created in the service of others—in this instance, usually sculpture, but also vases, flower arrangements, and other things that need to be raised in height and highlighted in order to focus attention on them and thus to be seen to their best advantage. By their very nature they are thus part of an ensemble. Nineteenth-century American sculptors understood the importance of this (literally) supporting role. Hiram Powers, for example, had his famous Greek Slave mounted on a revolving pedestal, so that she could be seen in the round from all angles. Similarly, Thomas Crawford specified the materials, dimensions, construction, and finish for the pedestal for his massive Orpheus and Cerberus of 1843.

Despite its importance, the pedestal is often overlooked. The succinct essay here by R. Ruthie Dibble and Avis Berman addresses that gap by examining the “shift in the function, design, and aesthetics of the pedestal” (p. 5) from the neoclassical period through the end of the century and the advent of the arts and crafts movement, charting the evolution of the form as it was expressed in most of the major revival styles of the nineteenth century.

Dibble and Berman begin their survey with the early, neoclassical phase of the pedestal’s history, during which it served largely a secondary role in the support of white marble sculpture. This slow beginning, from roughly 1820 to the 1850s, featured pedestals of marble, often in the form of columns or plinths that served the purpose without drawing much attention to themselves.^[1]

Things began to change in the third quarter of the century, as an emerging art market and a focus on domesticity saw the introduction of more works of art into household interiors. During this time, a shift in the importance of the pedestal occurred: as the authors put it, “the object for display became an object of display” (p. 14) in and of itself. Wooden examples were produced by many of the major furniture firms in all of the au courant revival styles, and several examples by Pottier and Stymus, Kilian Brothers, and Edward Mahar of Boston demonstrate this point.

The next phase of the form’s trajectory occurred in the last quarter of the century. The Centennial celebrations in 1876 marked the beginning of what is called here the “golden age” of the “ubiquitous” pedestal. Superb examples in the modern Gothic and aesthetic movement modes by Kimbel and Cabus, Herter Brothers, and others represent the apex of what the authors see as the highest aesthetic achievement of the form. They also call attention (pp. 36–38) to a hybrid form of pedestal that provided room for display on its top, as was traditional, but also allowed for the storage and display of additional objects on its lower level, on a shelf or in a small cupboard.

As the century came to a close, the heyday of the pedestal ended during a period that saw the “pedestal effaced.” Rodin and other sculptors are cited as the principal agents of this decline. Rodin “challenged the norms governing traditional pedestals” and “after jettisoning heads, arms, hands, and legs” in his work, “Rodin eliminated the pedestal” (p. 46). No longer seen as indispensable, the pedestal “was discarded for the very elements that had once made it so desirable: elevation, veneration, and artfulness” (p. 46).

Richly illustrated with period prints, photographs showing pedestals in use, and pages from trade catalogues, as well as with images of many surviving examples in public and private collections, The Art of Display is a valuable addition, in microcosm, to our understanding of nineteenth-century material life.

Gerald W. R. Ward
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston