1. Advertisement by Charles Woolsey Lyon, Antiques 47, no. 5 (May 1945): 249. Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York: Viking Press, 1966), p. 221, no. 177.
2. A print of the photograph is in the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum Library, 66.754. Robert P. Emlen and Sara Steiner, “The Short-Lived Partnership of Adrian Webb and Charles Scott,” Antiques 127, no. 5 (May 1985): 1141–43.
3. For the recent history of the desk-and-bookcase, see Frederick Vogel III, “Milwaukee Acquires a Masterpiece: The ‘ET’ Desk and Bookcase,” The Scrivener, The Newsletter of the American Heritage Society, Milwaukee Art Museum (spring 1998).
4. William H. Short, “New Additions to a Group of Federal Furniture,” Antiques 140, no. 6 (December 1991): 960–65. Short’s group also included a set of six neoclassical chairs with carving that may relate to that on the firescreen shown in figure 54. Northeast Auctions, New Hampshire Auction, Manchester, N.H., November 2 and 3, 1996, p. 24, lot 537. For the results of the sale, see Maine Antique Digest 25, no. 1 (January 1997): 2-C. Guided by a policy to collect only objects made or used in the state, the curator at the Connecticut Historical Society recommended the sale of the desk-and-bookcase. Another museum with a broader mandate—the Milwaukee Art Museum—was able to acquire the piece.
5. The chest shown in figure 5 is also inscribed “Repaired by Enoch Pond March 21th 1837.” This inscription is beneath the earlier one and is in a different hand. Although both inscriptions are probably the artisans’, the possibility that an owner sought to record the name of the maker and repairman cannot be discounted.
6. For information on Nathan Lombard, see Vital Records of Brimfield, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1931), p. 90; manuscript genealogy assembled for Karl Lombard Briel, a direct descendant of Nathan Lombard. Indenture of Ariel Lombard to Abner Allen, December 5, 1785, Old Sturbridge Village Research Library, 1976.21. Vital Records of Sturbridge, Massachusetts to the Year 1850 (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1906), p. 228; Nathan and Delight’s first child, Alanson Allen Lombard, was born in Sutton on January 25, 1803. The couple probably settled in the town at least two months earlier (Vital Records of Sutton, Massachusetts to the end of the Year 1849 [Worcester: Franklin P. Rice, 1907], p. 110). Presumably they rented a residence in the town. Their first purchase of real estate in Sutton occurred in 1805 (Archelaus Putnam to Nathan Lombard, Worcester County Record of Deeds, vol. 158, p. 342). For information on Sutton’s growth during the early nineteenth century, see Nora Pat Small, “Beauty and Convenience: The Architectural Reordering of Sutton, Massachusetts, 1790–1840” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1994), pp. 60–81. Lombard owned a farm in addition to his home and cabinet shop (William A. Benedict and Hiram A. Tracy, comps., History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1704 to 1876 [Worcester: Sanford & Company, 1878], pp. 212–13, 305–6). Accounts of Ezra Allen’s home were written by his granddaughter, Mary L. Charles (see Martin Lovering, History of the Town of Holland, Massachusetts [Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle Company, 1915], pp. 383–86, and typescript essay in the accession records for the Winterthur desk-and-bookcase, 57.885). William Short’s typescript history of the chairs, firescreen, and serpentine chest of drawers and sideboard shown in figures 15 and 37 is also in the accessions records for 57.885.
7. Benedict and Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, p. 212. National Aegis (Worcester, Mass.), May 1, 1805.
8. See citation for Alanson A. Lombard in Donna Keith Baron, “Furniture Makers and Retailers in Worcester County, Massachusetts, Working to 1850,” Antiques 143, no. 5 (May 1993): 792. See accounts mentioning Lombard in the Jonathan Dudley Account Book, 1818–1835, private collection. Benedict and Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, pp. 232–33.
9. Vital Records of Brimfield, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, p. 305. Lombard’s purchases of property are recorded in the Worcester County Record of Deeds on the following volumes and pages: 158:342; 233:320–21; 243:39; 259:53; 275:665; 300:372; 314:103; 317:13; 343:631. Lombard’s pew transactions are noted in First Congregational Church Records, “Society Records,” vol. 2 (1794–1822), Sutton Historical Society, pp. 62, 73, 83, 92. Nathan served as a town selectman in 1817, 1818, 1821, and 1822 (Benedict and Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, p. 799). Will of Nathan Lombard, 1847, Worcester County Probate Records, vol. 89, pp. 401–2.
10. An 1837 description of featherbanding is quoted in Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period, p. 33. Lombard also used cedrella, butternut, and what appears to be ash for banding. A characteristic Boston rococo straight bracket foot is pictured in Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Winterthur Museum, 1997), p. 359, no. 177; for a typical New England neoclassical bracket foot with inner C scroll, see Brock Jobe, ed., Portsmouth Furniture, Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast (Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1993), nos. 8, 28.
11. A sixth chest (at the Dallas Museum of Art) may also be a member of the group. It incorporates the vertical-grained cherry veneer, chevron stringing, and distinctive spur at the base of the bracket feet seen on the signed Lombard chest (fig. 5); however, the molded edge of the top and exposed dovetails binding the rear bracket feet to the rear support clearly set it apart from the others. See Charles L. Venable, American Furniture in the Bybee Collection (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), no. 37. To the authors’ knowledge, the privately owned chest has never been pictured or published. Christie’s, The Collection of the Late Jeannette R. Marks, Lexington, Kentucky, June 5–6, 1987, lot 593. John Walton purchased the chest at the Christie’s sale and subsequently advertised it in Antiques 133, no. 5 (May 1988): 940.
12. The plainer chest originally belonged to Simeon and Susanna Clark of Hardwick, Massachusetts. It is pictured in Short, “New Additions,” p. 965, pl. 8.
13. In addition to the two bowfronts illustrated here (figs. 22, 23), a third is shown in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collections, 10 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Highland House Publishers, 1969–1992), 4:876, and a fourth was formerly in the collection of Bernard and S. Dean Levy of New York.
14. In addition to the chest of drawers illustrated here (fig. 24), another is shown in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 1:276, and a third belongs to Woodbury, Connecticut, antiques dealer David Dutton. Kenneth Joel Zogry, The Best the Country Affords, Vermont Furniture 1765–1850 (Bennington, Vt.: Bennington Museum, 1995), no. 69.
15. For a preconservation illustration of the desk-and-bookcase, see Maine Antique Digest 25, no. 9 (September 1997): 33-F.
16. Smaller versions of the shield and eagle motif on Rhode Island and Massachusetts card tables are shown in Alexandra W. Rollins and Clement E. Conger, Treasures of State, Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), nos. 122, 123, 126, 127.
17. The three plainer desk-and-bookcases are illustrated in American Art Association, Morris Berry Collection, New York, April 25–26, 1930, lot 169; Skinner’s, Fine Americana, Bolton, Massachusetts, May 24, 1985, lot 204; and Christie’s Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk and Decorative Arts, New York, June 19, 1996, lot 196 (purchased by Cinnamon Hill Antiques and advertised in Antiques 151, no. 3 [March 1997]: 418). Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport, The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), p. 10. Frequently in two-part Rhode Island case furniture, the parts are anchored by a cleat. The cleat is nailed to the underside of the upper case, which fits into an opening in the top of the lower case. For more on this construction, see Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), pp. 174–75. Lombard’s method, though quite different in approach, serves the same purpose.
18. Vital Records of Brimfield, Massachusetts to the Year 1850, p. 211.
19. According to Jess Pavey, the antiques dealer who sold the sideboard to the Henry Ford Museum, the piece belonged to the Capron family, early settlers of Uxbridge, Massachusetts (letter from Pavey in museum accession file, 54.35.1).
20. For illustrations of the three sideboards not pictured here, see American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 1:51; Skinner’s, Fine Americana Including the Private Collection of Kenneth Hammitt of Woodbury, Connecticut, Bolton, Massachusetts, October 30–31, 1993, lot 313A; and American Art Association, The Philip Flayderman Collection, New York, January 2–4, 1930, lot 431. The Skinner’s sideboard reportedly descended in the family of Charles O. Childs of Stow, Massachusetts. It was purchased by Bernard and S. Dean Levy and re-sold to a private collector. The Flayderman sideboard resurfaced in the antiques trade during the early 1990s. According to one source, it had numerous repairs, including at least two new legs. We have not examined the sideboards formerly owned by Sack and Flayderman, and we are unaware of the location of the sideboard with inlaid herons. Hopefully this publication will spur its re-discovery. Carved herons and other birds also occur in American furniture and architectural carving from the last half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.
21. Benjamin A. Hewitt, Patricia E. Kane, and Gerald W. R. Ward, The Work of Many Hands, Card Tables in Federal America 1790–1820 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1982), pp. 153–54. The pembroke table is illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 1:67. It has not been examined by the authors.
22. Francis P. Garvan purchased the stand shown in figure 46 on January 18, 1929, from Charles R. Morson, a New York antiques dealer. It became part of the collection given to the Yale University Art Gallery by Garvan in honor of his wife, Mabel Brady Garvan. For more on the stand, see David L. Barquist, American Tables and Looking Glasses in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), no. 126. A fourth stand illustrated in Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period, no. 376, relates to the previous three in its basic design: tripod legs with a pronounced knee much like that on the Yale stand, urn-and-ring turned pillar resembling that on the plainest of the three stands, and small drawer beneath the top. In addition, the Winterthur stand features a two-headed eagle and shield inlay similar to that on the clock attributed to Lombard (see fig. 42). The stand is, however, coarser in its construction and lacks the dovetailed box housing the drawer that appears on the other three. Because of these differences, we have chosen not to attribute it to Lombard. A fifth stand illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 3:830, relates in one key detail to others attributed to Lombard. The pattern of interlaced vines and flowers rising from an urn on its oval top resembles the treatment on the “1800” and “EH / 1801” stands; however, the shape of the inlaid urn and the design of the turned pillar are so distinctive that we have refrained from attributing it to Lombard.
23. Short, “New Additions,” pl. 6.
24. A typescript of Mary Charles’s account is filed in the accession records for the Winterthur desk-and-bookcase (acc. 57. 885).
25. Providence furniture with inlays reminiscent of those used by Lombard include a sideboard illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 7:1940, 1941; another sideboard with a Killingly, Connecticut, history in Eleanore Bradford Monahon, “The Rawson Family of Cabinetmakers in Providence, Rhode Island,” Antiques 118, no. 1 (July 1980): 138–39, pl. 4, fig. 10; and a card table in Christopher P. Monkhouse and Thomas S. Michie, American Furniture in Pendleton House (Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1986), no. 79. George Hepplewhite, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, 3rd ed. (London: I. and J. Taylor, 1794), pl. 77.
26. Tenney made “carriages, . . . cider mill screws, all kinds of household furniture, sideboards, sofas, lounges, and chairs of every variety.” He employed several journeymen and apprentices including Charles De Coster (a cabinetmaker from Charlestown), Jonathan Sibley, Zadock Woodbury, Sylvester Morse, Adams Morse, John Humphrey, Aaron Burdon, and Jonathan Howard. See Benedict and Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, p. 303. Abraham Brown is identified as a cabinetmaker in Sutton in a court case of 1803; he was sued by William Darling, Jr., for failing to make “one case of Drawers & one three feet and a half maple table, exclusive of brasses” valued at $18; Worcester County Court of Common Pleas, Record Books, September 1803 term, p. 191. |