Fantastic Mr. Shearer

Editorial Staff Exhibitions

Fantastic Mr. Shearer A man with a mission, the elusive late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Virginia cabinetmaker John Shearer often professed his British loyalties in carving and inlay. Even when he did not, his furniture displays an idiosyncratic style that has long intrigued scholars and collectors-and made Shearer the subject of two articles in our April-May 2010 issue, written in …

Shearer Loyalism and Heritage

Editorial Staff Furniture & Decorative Arts

from The Magazine ANTIQUES, April/May 2010 | Figs. 1, 1a. Desk-and-bookcase made by John Shearer (active c. 1798–at least 1818), Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), 1801–1806. Inscribed “Down with the Cropper of Ireland” and “Cropper is Repenting and his Master is Angry” in the top drawer of the case. Walnut, cherry, mulberry, yellow pine, and oak; height 8 feet 10 …