1. George Hepplewhite, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788), preface. 2. Wilbur H. Hunter, “Baltimore in the Revolutionary Generation,” in Maryland Heritage: Five Baltimore Institutions Celebrate the American Bicentennial, edited by John B. Boles (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1976), p. 189. 3. From a letter by William Eddis in Letters from America, edited by Aubrey C. Land (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1969), p. 13. Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 408. 4. Richard Lawson’s birthplace is recorded on the painting illustrated in fig. 20. Gualter Hornby’s name appears in the Baltimore County Naturalization Docket (Robert Barnes, Baltimore Naturalizations, 1796–1803, a supplement to the Baltimore Town and Fell’s Point Directory of 1796 [1796; reprint ed., Silver Spring, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1983], p. 61). William Singleton is described as a “native of England” in the records of St. Paul’s Parish (Bill and Martha Reamy, Records of St. Paul’s Parish, 2 vols. [Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1989], 2:23). John Dougherty and James McCormick were described as being from Great Britain in the Baltimore County Naturalization Docket (Barnes, Baltimore Naturalizations, p. 59). For more on McCormick, who was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, see Dr. J. Hall Pleasants Files in Early American Portraiture, file no. 513, Gallery Office, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore (hereafter cited MHS). In the February 21, 1786, issue of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, McCormick reported that he had “for some years past worked in the first shops in Dublin. Aiton reported that he was “from Europe” in an advertisement in the April 22, 1783, Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser. 5. For more on the production of secretaires à abattant, see Peter M. Kenny, Francis Bretter, and Ulrich Leben, Honoré Lannuier: Cabinetmaker from Paris (New York: Harry Abrams for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998), pp. 16–18, 71, 79; and Charles L. Venable, “Germanic Craftsmen and Furniture Design in Philadelphia, 1820–1850,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1998), passim. The earliest secretaires à abattant in the Baltimore group (see fig. 4) appear to predate those associated with Lannuier by more than a decade. 6. The terms “antique” and “palmyrian” were often used to describe the neoclassical taste. For more on these design sources, see Elizabeth White, comp., Pictorial Dictionary of British Eighteenth-Century Furniture Design: The Printed Sources (Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Antique Collector’s Club, 1990), passim. 7. J. Thomas Savage, “The Holmes-Edwards Library Bookcase and the Origins of the German School in Pre-Revolutionary Charleston,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1997), pp. 106–27; John Bivins, “The Convergence and Divergence of Three Stylistic Traditions in Charleston Neoclassical Case Furniture, 1785–1800,” in ibid., pp. 47–106; research files of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (hereafter cited MESDA), Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 8. The backs of standard chests typically have vertically grained boards with tongue-and-groove joints. Many of these construction practices evolved in London during the 1730s and continued in use for high-end British furniture throughout the eighteenth century. 9. Lindsay Boynton, ed., Gillow Furniture Designs (Royston, England: Bloomfield Press, 1995), p. 168, entry for March 11, 1789. Cock-beading is rarely found in the early Baltimore group. The bottoms of large drawers are set in a groove in the front, dadoed to the sides, nailed at the back, and reinforced along the sides and front with tightly clustered glue blocks. In contrast, the bottoms of the small drawers are glued into rabbets in the front and sides. The rear edges of all the drawers are secured with wrought sprigs. Some furniture scholars consider this structure less sophisticated than the rabbeted drawer construction typical of mid-eighteenth-century London casework; however, many cabinetmakers abandoned such early construction practices during the last quarter of the century in favor of the simpler work found here, particularly for large case drawers. The bottom boards of all large drawers in the early Baltimore group run side to side. Most are nailed up into the drawer backs with four or five wrought finish nails, although forged T- and L-shaped heads occur sporadically. The bottom boards on interior drawers run front to back. The boards are rabbeted to the sides and front and secured with tiny wrought finish nails at the rear. The dovetails of the large and small drawers have tight, narrow pins and precisely sawn tails. No kerfs are visible on the interior surfaces, indicating that the cabinetmakers finished their work with chisels like many of their British contemporaries. The large drawer fronts typically have mahogany cores and mahogany veneer. On some examples (see figs. 2, 3) the cores are laminated. 10. Marston and Bellamy of Birminghan patented the process for die-stamping brasses in 1779 (Ralph Edwards, The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture [London: Country Life, 1954], p. 306). 11. The earliest information on Lawson comes from the inscription on his portrait by Maryland artist Charles Peale Polk (fig. 20). Polk charged Lawson £17.10 for this portrait and another of Lawson’s wife (Charles Peale Polk to Richard Lawson, November 27, 1794, Library Manuscripts Collection, MHS). Richard Lawson’s father, Stephen, was a carpenter who married Agnes Simpson in 1743. Richard was baptized in 1750. His father subsequently worked as a baker in Keighley. Tench Tilghman Papers, ms. 1445, MHS. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, July 29, 1785. Although dated July 1, this advertisement did not run until four weeks later. Several Baltimore cabinetmakers had shops on Gay Street. Bankson and Lawson’s shop was on the east side in the first block south of Market, the city’s main commercial thoroughfare. In 1786, the firm moved approximately three blocks west, to the southwest corner of Light Lane and Bank Street, a location closer to the city’s wharves. 12. For more on the Seddon firm, see Sir Ambrose Heal, The London Furniture Makers from the Restoration to the Victorian Era, 1660–1840’s (1933; reprint ed., New York: Dover, 1972), pp. 161–62; and Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, eds., Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, 1660–1840 (Leeds, England: W. S. Maney and Son for the Furniture History Society, 1986), pp. 793–99. Like many of his contemporaries, George Seddon produced architectural woodwork in addition to furniture. Between 1781 and 1789, his firm furnished interior components for the Greenwich Hospital Chapel, where he assisted cabinetmaker James Arrow (Geoffrey Beard, Craftsmen and Interior Decoration in England, 1660–1820 [New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981], p. 242). No record identifying Seddon’s early apprentices is known, nor are there daybooks or objects surviving from the period when Lawson reputedly worked for the firm. George Seddon II (1765–1815) and his brother Thomas (1761–1804) joined the firm in 1785 and subsequently took Thomas’s brother-in-law Thomas Shackleton as a partner. During the 1790s, the firm received the first of many documented royal commissions and became the largest cabinet shop in London. By 1827, when the elder George Seddon’s grandson and namesake took Nicholas Morel as a partner, most of the company’s clients were members of the royal family. Sophie von La Roche’s visit is described in ibid. 13. Henry Wansey, Journal of an Excursion to the United States of North America in the Summer of 1794, 2d ed., as quoted in David Barquist, “‘The Honours of a Court’ or ‘the Severity of Virtue,’” in Shaping a National Culture: The Philadelphia Experience, 1750–1800, edited by Catherine Hutchins (Winterthur, Del.: Winterthur Museum, 1994), p. 324. The author thanks Ron Fuchs for this reference. Invoice from William Murdoch to Hugh Thompson for “sundries shipped from Seddon Sons & Shackleton,” May 2, 1797, ms. 990, MHS. 14. John D. Kilbourne, Vitruvius Praemium: The Men Who Founded the State Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania (Rockport, Maine: Picton Press, n.d.), pp. 6, 255, 1100. From May 1784 to June 12, 1785, Bankson was in partnership with Baltimore cabinetmaker William Gordon (d. 1798) (Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, May 18, 1784, and June 10, 1785). 15. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, May 18, 1784. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the third edition of Hepplewhite’s Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1794) as having the first use of the term “wardrobe”; however, it also appears in the first edition (1788). Columbia Herald (Charleston), May 1, 1786, and June 14, 1787. 16. Columbia Herald (Charleston), May 1, 1786. Savage, “The Holmes-Edwards Library Bookcase,” pp. 106–27. 17. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, June 17, 1788. 18. The procession is described in the Gazette of the State of Georgia (Savannah), June 12, 1788. 19. Gregory R. Weidman, “Baltimore Federal Furniture: In the English Tradition,” in The American Craftsman and the European Tradition, edited by Francis J. Puig and Michael Conforti (Minneapolis, Minn.: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1989), p. 258. Charles Carnan Ridgley, Ledger L, January 19, 1792, folio 62, G. Howard White Collection, Maryland State Archives, Annapolis. 20. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, October 25, 1791; April 17, 1792, and February 11, 1793. Bankson took Englehart Reams as an apprentice in the cabinetmaking trade on October 10, 1792 (Baltimore County Orphans Court Proceedings, No. 3, 1792–1798, p. 13). 21. Baltimore Daily Repository, February 11, 1793. For more on Askew’s brief career, see Gergory R. Weidman, Furniture in Maryland, 1740–1940: The Collection of the Maryland Historical Society (Baltimore: By the society, 1984), p. 73. Baltimore Daily Repository, February 11, 1793, and August 23, 1793. Bankson and Wilkinson’s partnership lasted through 1795. Robert Wilkinson (1769–1853) was in business with William Smith at 16 Light Street by the time the first Baltimore city directory was published in 1796 (Baltimore Town and Fell’s Point Directory of 1796). On December 5, 1796, the Federal Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser reported that “a fire broke out in a frame building on the West side of Light Street. . . . The flames immediately caught Messrs. Wilkinson and Smith’s cabinet manufactory.” Two days later, Wilkinson and Smith thanked the public “for their particular attention and exertions at the late fire” and reported that they would “soon . . . establish and carry on their business as heretofore” (Federal Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, December 7, 1796). Six months later, they dissolved their partnership (Federal Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, June 6, 1797). Wilkinson continued in business on his own through 1799 (Baltimore Directory for 1799). The following year, the cabinet and chair manufactory of Combs and Jenkins moved from Water Street into the building formerly occupied by Wilkinson, Bankson and Wilkinson, and Bankson and Lawson (Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, April 1, 1800). This marked the end of a business carried on by a succession of accomplished artisans for nearly two decades. By 1801, Bankson had established a lumber and import business on McElderry’s Wharf. This business prospered until Bankson’s death on June 5, 1814 (Baltimore Directory for 1801). Lawson had established a separate business as a lumber merchant at Bowly’s Wharf in 1789 (Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, September 25, 1789). In January 1792, he sold his company to John McFadon (Maryland Gazette and Baltimore Advertiser, January 31, 1792). Lawson evidently retained an interest in the new firm. On November 8, 1802, the Telegraph and Daily Advertiser (Baltimore) reported that William and John McFadon and Richard Lawson had dissolved their “copartnership.” 22. Straight-front chests are among the most common furniture forms associated with the Bankson and Lawson shop tradition. See Baltimore Furniture: The Work of Baltimore and Annapolis Cabinetmakers from 1760 to 1810 (Baltimore, Md.: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1947), p. 135; and Charles Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York: Viking Press, 1966), pp. 184–85, no. 141. 23. “Chinese” mullions are illustrated in the first edition of Thomas Chippendale’s Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754). All of the bookcases attributed to Bankson and Lawson that have been examined by the authors are secured to their lower cases with separately attached dovetailed battens. The cornices typically have dovetailed frames, and most have friezes veneered with cross-banded mahogany and vine inlay. The pediment frames have a series of large blocks glued to the interior and are attached to the top of the upper case with screws. The upper case usually has two rectangular blocks glued to its top, which help align the cornice and hold it in place. Although the cornice moldings differ from piece to piece, most have mahogany cove elements with triangular pine or tulip laminates. Several of the most expensive examples have cornice moldings pierced with gothic arches and decorated with acorn-shaped drops, each of which is applied separately (see figs. 6, 19). The doors on bookcases typically have intricate mullions accentuated with string inlay (see figs. 5, 6, 19). The mullions are invariably tenoned into the stiles and rails rather than being set in slots that are exposed on the interior of door. Most American cabinetmakers used the latter technique, which was quicker and cheaper. The construction of the door frames is also exceptionally neat and sturdy. The rails are through-tenoned, and the joints are secured with glue and wedges rather than with pins. 24. Hepplewhite, Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, pl. 69. 25. A ca. 1768 carved chimneypiece from the Stamper-Blackwell house in Philadelphia (now in the Winterthur Museum) depicts a stag and hound in a pose similar to that inlaid on the cylinder of this desk-and-bookcase. A related stag-and-hound inlay is on the top of a tea table in a private collection. For more on the Stamper-Blackwell chimneypiece and the influence of Hercules Courtenay and carver John Pollard, see Leroy Graves and Luke Beckerdite’s article in this volume. Morrison H. Heckscher, “English Furniture Pattern Books in Eighteenth-Century America,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1994), p. 191. 26. A desk virtually identical to the one shown in fig. 27 is illustrated on p. 103, fig. 76, in William Voss Elder III and Jayne E. Stokes, American Furniture, 1680–1880: From the Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, Md.: By the museum, 1987). A similar desk is owned by the University of Virginia and displayed in Pavillion VI. A secretary-and-bookcase illustrated in Weidman, Furniture in Maryland, pp. 135–36, no. 96, appears to be by Bankson and Lawson or one of their journeymen. Its scalloped, satinwood-veneered skirt is similar to those on the cylinder desks noted above, and its door mullions are derived from a design shown on pl. 27 in the Society of Upholsterer’s Cabinet-Makers’ London Book of Prices (1788). Another secretary-and-bookcase with a pierced tympanum, “Chinese” mullions, and French feet with inlaid husks similar to those shown in fig. 15 is illustrated in Sotheby’s, Important Americana, New York, January 26, 1989, lot 1496. 27. The authors have not inspected the clothespress and cannot verify its structure or the originality of the inlay on the prospect door and document drawers. 28. The secretaire à abattant descended in the Myer family until the Chrysler Museum acquired the house and its contents. 29. Hepplewhite, Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788), text for pl. 29. The tops of the sideboards attributed to Bankson and Lawson’s shop (see figs. 7, 8, 32–35) are composed of thin mahogany boards with parallel laminates beneath the front, sides, and back. The tops of the serpentine and blockfront chests (figs. 2, 3) are constructed in a similar fashion. Most straight-front chests (see fig. 13) have dovetailed tops covered with veneer. Mitered strips nailed to the sides and front create the overhanging edges. These strips are generally veneered with cross-banded mahogany and inlaid with boxwood stringing, although more elaborate pieces have cross-banded satinwood. This applied overhang—which mirrors the earlier, rococo practice of applying a classical molding around the top edges of a dovetailed case—was abandoned in most American cities during the neoclassical period, but remained an integral part of Baltimore’s cabinetmaking tradition well into the nineteenth century. 30. For additional commode sideboards attributed to Bankson and Lawson, see advertisement for Joe Kindig, Jr., Antiques 50, no. 2 (August 1946): inside front cover; and Israel Sack, Inc., Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 10 vols. (Alexandria, Va.: Highland House, 1981), 1:283. 31. Robert C. Smith, “A Bill From George Seddon,” Antiques (October 1960): 362–63. For the other bow-front sideboards attributed to Bankson and Lawson, see advertisement for Joe Kindig, Jr., Antiques 58, no. 1 (July 1950): inside front cover; Sotheby’s, The Garbisch Collection, vol. 4, New York, May 23, 1980, lot 1139; Elder and Stokes, American Furniture, pp. 148–49, no. 113; and private collection. 32. Indenture between Bankson and Lawson and William Patterson, April 2, 1789, Baltimore County Orphan’s Court Proceedings, no. 2, 1789–1792. Most apprenticeships lasted six to seven years. Although Lawson left the firm in 1792, Bankson and Wilkinson remained in business until 1796, the year Patterson first appears in Baltimore directories. Patterson married Nancy Craig at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in July 1795 (Reamy, Records of St. Paul’s Parish, 1:89). 33. MESDA research file 10959. 34. Account of the Sale of Thomas Barrett, November 20, 1800, Baltimore County Inventories, vol. 2, folio, 688, Maryland State Archives, Annapolis. In 1803, Patterson moved to 22 Albemarle Street, where he remained until 1817. 35. Indenture between Thomas Barrett and John Lennox, February 18, 1795, Baltimore County, Maryland Orphans Court Proceedings, No. 3, 1792–1798, p. 136. Barrett married Elizabeth (maiden name unknown) prior to December 1788, when their son Thomas was born. The elder Barrett may not have been in Baltimore at the time of his and Elizabeth’s marriage, since no local license or church record is known. Four Thomas Barretts emigrated from England to America between 1765 and 1770, but no connection between these individuals and the Baltimore ebonist has been established. Two individuals whose last name was Barrett lived in Baltimore County during the 1760s, and a John Barrett resided in Baltimore during the 1780s and 1790s (Henry C. Peden, Jr., Inhabitants of Baltimore County, 1763–1774 [Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1989], p. 17). The latter was a communicant of St. Paul’s Church (Reamy, Records of St. Paul’s Parish, 1:50, 120). 36. Indenture between Thomas Barrett and John Lennox. 37. Reamy, Records of St. Paul’s Parish, 2:23. Singleton married Elizabeth Slater in St. Paul’s Church on March 20, 1793 (ibid., 1:69). U. S. Congress, “Manufactures: Communicated to the House of Representatives, April 11, 1789,” in American State Papers, vol. 1 (Boston: T. B. Wart, 1817), pp. 5–8. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, May 18, 1790. Singleton and McFadon advertised at 11 North Gay Street in the January 29, 1796, Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser. For additional listings at that address, see the Baltimore Town and Fell’s Point Directory of 1796 and the Baltimore Directory for 1799 (Baltimore, Md.: John Mullen, 1799). For more on McFadon’s association with Richard Lawson, see n. 23. The 1790 census (taken after March) does not list William Singleton in Baltimore. He may have been one of the three males over sixteen listed with William McFadon (First Census of the United States, 1790, Maryland [Baltimore, Md.: Southern Book Co., 1952], p. 17). Weidman, “Baltimore Federal Furniture,” p. 258, incorrectly states that McFadon was born abroad. 38. Lida Leiseuring, Maryland Marriage Records, 1777–1799 (Baltimore, Md., 1900), n.p. Reamy, Records of St. Paul’s Parish, 1:57, 99, 128, 159–60; 2:20. From 1796 to 1797, Singleton served as church warden and Richard Lawson was a vestryman. For a reference to the Diana, see the Baltimore American, July 14, 1804. 39. “Account of Mr. Thompson’s Furniture as taken from the original bills,” undated ms. (ca. 1800), Hugh Thompson Papers, ms. 990, MHS. In addition to this furniture, Thompson furnished his townhouse with lavish goods from London and Paris. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, October 1, 1793. Singleton continued to purchase lumber from John McFadon and Co. in the late 1790s (John Hill, “The Furniture Craftsmen in Baltimore, 1783–1823” [M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1967], p. 131). The 1800 census lists three young men (ages 17–26) in addition to Singleton at his house/shop (G. Ronald Teeples, Maryland 1800 Census [Provo, Utah: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1973], p. 493). In the October 1, 1793, issue of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser he stated that “constant employ and liberal wages will be given to two or three good journeymen.” Singleton was also a client of Thomas Barrett and owed his estate $29.80 (Account of the Sale of Thomas Barrett). English-born cabinetmaker Gualter Hornby (b. 1755–1760, d. 1816) was also in Baltimore during the period of Bankson and Lawson’s partnership; however, no documentation concerning his training, shop practices, or patrons is known. He, his wife Elizabeth (d. 1826), and at least one son, Walter, Jr. (d. 1793), arrived in the city by April 1783, when Gualter is listed as a “pauper” in the tax assessment list for East Baltimore Hundred in April of that year (Maryland Tax List, 1783: Baltimore County [Philadelphia, Pa.: Historic Publications, 1978]). Hornby subsequently formed a partnership with a cabinetmaker named Turner. In the December 19, 1788, issue of the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, they reported that their shop was on Gay Street and advertised “beautiful mahogany that was taken in the Time of the War.” The date when the partnership disbanded is not known, but Hornby was at 6 Light Street, just about four doors north of the Bankson and Lawson shop, by 1792 (Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, February 5, 1792). This location was later described as 6 Light Street in Baltimore city directories. He remained at that location through 1810. 40. Jane Webb Smith, “‘A Large and Elegant Assortment’: A Group of Baltimore Tall Clocks, 1795–1815,” in Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts 13, no. 2 (November 1987): 32–103. Most of the clockmakers discussed in Smith’s article did not begin working in Baltimore before Bankson and Lawson’s partnership ended: William Elvins (w. 1795–1816), Charles Tinges (w. 1797–1818), Peter Mohler (1797–1827), William Thompson (w. 1796–1822), and Mountjoy and Welsh (w. 1797). Smith illustrates a tall clock case with a replaced movement by Gilbert Bigger (w. 1783–1816) on pp. 34–37, figs. 1–1d. A tall clock case with bird inlays in the hood spandrels is illustrated in an advertisement by G. K. S. Bush in Antiques 113, no. 6 (June 1983): 1184. The clock cases shown in figs. 40–44 and most of the examples related to them have broken-scroll pediments with tympana consisting of two scroll-sawn boards abutting a central plinth. Each section is attached to the top of the cornice molding by a series of small blocks that run end-to-end. The moldings are glued to the tympana in front and nailed from behind. At either end, they are nailed from above into the top of the cornice. 41. For more on masonic symbolism in American furniture, see F. Cary Howlett, “Admitted into the Mysteries: The Benjamin Bucktrout Masonic Master’s Chair,” in American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the Chipstone Foundation, 1996), pp. 199–232. For the tall clock case with figural inlay, see MESDA research file, 10, 977. The clock case and two secretaires à abattant have classical figures playing a flute. Details of one secretaire à abattant are shown in Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680–1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection (New York: Harry Abrams for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1997), p. 369, figs. 115.6 and 115.7. 42. A Pennsylvania tall clock case with a ca. 1800 movement by Jacob Klingman (1758–1806) has a fox-and-goose inlay that is closely related to the stag and hound on the desk-and-bookcase illustrated in figs. 26 and 27. This provides further support for the argument that the inlay maker employed by Bankson and Lawson continued to work in Baltimore after the dissolution of their partnership. For an illustration of this case, see Sotheby’s Important Americana, Furniture and Folk Art, New York, January 18, 1998, lot 1701. 43. Hurst and Prown, Southern Furniture, p. 125, fig. 31.1. The authors thank Deanne Levison for calling the chair illustrated in fig. 56 to their attention. For more on the side chair shown in fig. 59, see Montgomery, American Furniture, pp. 151–52, no. 103. According to Montgomery, these chairs descended to Tolley A. Biays, and according to oral tradition, they were made by Mr. Biays’s granduncle, Baltimore cabinetmaker Warwick Price (w. 1795–1810). 44. Columbia Herald, May 1, 1786. Four chairs with inlaid husks and vase backs that may be part of the Bankson and Lawson shop tradition are illustrated in Christie’s, Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, June 21, 1995, New York, lot 264.