After the May/June 2024 issue went to print, the Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired a c. 1765 mahogany sacristy chest (cómoda de sacristía) that complements the museum‘s late fifteenth-century monstrance and sixteenth-century Butaca chair.
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In late January 2019, after years of surveying, researching, and refining the furniture collection through acquisitions and de-acquisitions, I began to write the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s first-ever catalogue of its early American furniture collection. Conservation analysis and treatments were either complete or in process, and Gavin Ashworth had taken more than three hundred photographs, while the remaining works would be shot by the museum’s photographers.
I elected to write the entries successively to keep the style and tone parallel throughout, and by August 5, 2019, I had finished the entries and notes on 297 works and written the first draft of the introductory essay.
As fate would have it, as soon as the entries were written and the catalogue was ready to print, furniture that refined or filled gaps began to be offered as gifts and for sale. Several pieces are still undergoing conservation and being photographed, but a selection of these new acquisitions follows. I am keen on pieces that engage the visitor—that have interesting personalities combined with purposeful narratives that connect to the PMA’s collection on view in our dazzling new galleries of early American art.
Early colonial New England seating furniture was imported into the Delaware Valley so extensively that Philadelphia-area chairmakers advertised that they made “Boston chairs.” And while early seating made in Philadelphia is rare, that made in the New Castle, Pennsylvania (now Delaware), area is as rare as hen’s teeth. This banister-back chair is one of three from a set with a history in the Gill family of Haddonfield, New Jersey,1 with distinctive features that are outliers in Philadelphia and instead point to being made by Scandinavian artisans working in what they called New Amstel: its primary materials (maple and ash), the narrow rails, the arrangement of the stretchers, and the profiles of the turnings (attenuated shafts, crisply cut rings, and vases capped by scribed balls and arrows). These Scandinavian artisans—primarily Swedish, such as Jan Henrikson (d. 1689), who was referred to as “John Hendrixon the Torner”—thrived in New Castle.2 While this chair and the other two from the set share stylistic details and construction nuances with the handful of other chairs with New Castle histories, the extraordinary crest rail—with its cut-through composition and carved decoration—distinguish this set.
Apart from the trapezoidal seats, scrolls and S-curves (what William Hogarth called the “line of beauty”) dominate the design of these chairs. Made at a time when high-relief, rococo carving began to punctuate and even delineate the forms, the artistry here relies completely on profile. The most prominent features are the so-called “ears” that extend out from the stiles and are in the shape of a scroll, or volute, which was borrowed from classical Greek architectural capitals in the Ionic style. The ancient Greeks adopted the shape from the spiral of a ram’s horn, and its pleasing form was incorporated in architecture and furniture as a flourish that, as here, finishes a curve. In the construction of these chairs, the volutes are located on the ends of the crest rail, but they are shaped to protrude as if they are the final extensions of the stiles. Though straight, the lower edge of the front rail is shaped with a single, protracted double curve and is framed by brackets with a simple cusp, and uncarved cabriole legs of the same S-shape. Perhaps the showiest flourish is the three-pronged (so-called trifid) feet, but it is the personality that the protruding ears lend to these chairs that makes them so appealing.
Just when I thought the PMA had enough chairs from the 1750–1770 period, in walked these two examples that underscore the craftsmanship of Philadelphia design from these decades. While the strapwork banister, or splat, follows the quintessential Philadelphia pattern, the chairs are distinguished by the carved scallop shells on the ends and center of the crest rail and extra carved details on the banister and above the knees. But most beguiling is the highly unusual carved husk on the splat, depicted as it is nearly fully flowering. Originally from a set of eight, these chairs descended to the donors from one of two sets of great-great-great-grandparents from Philadelphia—either Robert (1734–1806) and Mary White Morris (1749–1827) or Colonel John (1733–1808) and Elizabeth Davis Nixon (d. 1795).
When I first saw this chair, I could barely contain my excitement at the opportunity to acquire it for the museum. Related to the PMA’s set of chairs made in 1809 by Thomas Whitecar (1784–1822),3 the extraordinary carving of the double sphinxes that form the back and the X-stretchers confirmed to me that Philadelphia neo-classical seating has a richer, more complex, and more French-leaning history than has been typically ascribed to it. Despite the stretchers in mahogany instead of gilt brass, the design faithfully follows the c. 1802 plate 77 of Meubles et Objets de Goût, the serial publication by French designer Pierre de la Mésangère (1761–1831). Since Egyptian sphinxes lack wings, these are specifically Greek—composed of the body and tail of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head of a woman. Scholar Robert F. Trent and I are knee deep in research on the design of this chair and others we have discovered, with the hope that we might expand the understanding of the lengths to which Philadelphia patrons and artisans went to mimic the cosmopolitan designs of Napoleonic France.
I had long been searching for a Philadelphia trick-leg table when these—a pair—showed up mid-pandemic in the 2020 online Philadelphia Show. The so-called trick-leg feature inside the pillars enables two of the three legs to swing outward when the leaves are unfurled, reducing the effort needed to open the tables. The mechanism was most likely brought to Philadelphia from New York by imported furniture or journeymen artisans enticed to Philadelphia for work.4 Only a handful of Philadelphia trick-leg tables are known, including the satinwood examples documented to George G. Wright (1780–1853).5 A thin crossbanding of blonde wood emphasizes the shape of the tables’ rails and, with great care (and expense), the veneers on the tops are book-matched, allowing for the tables to be used three ways: closed and stored along a wall, open and in use, or set back-to-back to form a center table.
Miniature furniture can be irresistible, especially when we realize that it is perfectly gauged to the size of a child. The quality of the carving and the joinery suggest that this child’s sofa was made by one of the finer Philadelphia cabinetmaking shops of the 1820s. Its significance is heightened because the shell-ended arms, lion’s-paw feet, framed back, scrolled crest rail, and “poofy” upholstery profile replicate full-size Philadelphia sofas of the period that are not represented in the PMA collection. The form serves as a reminder of the extent to which children playacted in adult roles, while also disabusing visitors of the myth that cabinetmakers made samples.
French bedsteads were popular for daytime reclining in fashionable Philadelphia houses beginning in the 1820s. This example is diminutively sized—today it would be called a single bed—and has decoration on all sides, meaning it was intended to be placed in the center of an elegant parlor. The maple is inlaid with a purple-hued rosewood with classical motifs of palmettes, anthemia, husks, and scrolls. The sophisticated and pared-down elegance—including the turned bosses—suggest it was made in the Philadelphia shop of English émigré cabinetmaker Richard Parkin, who leased the shop of Joseph Barry (1757–1838) at 134 South Second Street in 1833 and renamed it “Egyptian Hall.” Parkin favored the work of English Regency cabinetmaker and sculptor George Bullock (1777–1818), and this bed demonstrates how Parkin interpreted Bullock’s sleek aesthetic using “Tracings from Thomas Wilkinson from Designs of the late Mr. George Bullock, 1820.”6
When he arrived in New York in 1837, French ébéniste Alexander Roux brought the talent to make exuberant furniture in the so-called modern French style of this rosewood étagère. With its roots in the eighteenth-century French rococo, the style was one of several revivals prevailing in the 1840s and 1850s and was also known as French antique, Louis XIV, or Louis XV. By the time this étagère was made, Roux had more than a hundred artisans working in his shop, making the highest quality furniture in modern Renaissance, Gothic, and rococo revival styles. The voluptuous S-curves that form the legs, stretchers, and shelf brackets have a riot of carving, all centering on a mask: flowers (individual and in garlands); scallop shells with corollas (sometimes called cabochons); gathers of acanthus leaves; fish scales and diapering along the open expanses; attenuated C-scrolls stretched like chewy candy to frame the elements; and tightly wound scrolls. The stage-like shelves—or, in French, étages—are backed by a mirror to amplify the ceramics, glass, small sculptures, and textiles that would be displayed on them; at the top a lion bears his fangs. Related to ones at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the High Museum, this Roux-attributed étagère not only defines the rococo revival style, but also relates it to the 1760s lion’s-mask sideboard table in PMA’s collection.
Like their fellow artisans in Philadelphia, Rhode Island’s joiners and cabinetmakers (including many Quakers) excelled at making majestic high chests using richly figured mahogany, complex moldings, and just enough carved decoration. Roughly contemporary with the PMA’s exemplary 1755 Newport high chest signed by joiner Christopher Townsend (1701–1773) and his son John (1872/1833–1809), this example is more whimsical in design: its overtly anthropomorphic design, including its feet that are rendered as boots, makes it a welcome addition to engage visitors and encourage their visual skills while adding levity to eighteenth-century furniture! The boot-like feet connect the high chest to similarly carved feet on the museum’s Philadelphia chair with a history of ownership by James (1674–1751) and Sarah Read Smith Logan (1692–1754) of Stenton.
Combining two designs found in plate 563 of Pierre de La Mésangère’s Meubles et Objets de Goût, this Boston-made French secretary displays figured mahogany veneer that creates an exuberant pattern across an otherwise flat front. The side columns are formed by two tapered shafts capped by exquisitely rendered ormolu mounts imported from France. Concealed behind the drawers inside are secret compartments that are accessed through hidden spring actions. While many French secretaries had their original wooden tops removed and replaced with a marble slab, this example retains its original wooden top. Research is ongoing to reveal the rest of the signature, “Joseph F. [illegible].” This finely executed secretary provides a much needed (and relatively petite) pendant to our classical Philadelphia furniture.
On December 21, 1874, German émigré cabinetmaker George W. Ahrens of Chicago filed an application with the United States Patent Office for an “Improvement in Extension-Tables . . . to afford a compact storage-place for the movable leaves when the table is wholly or partially contracted .. . with slots [in the legs] to receive the movable leaves.” The patent (no. 160,562) was granted on March 9, 1875, and Ahrens produced this table for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition as an example of both his patent and his ability to create exuberantly decorated inlaid surfaces. Not surprisingly, the table earned an award for “originality of design and excellence of inlay.” The woods—both naturally colored and figured as well as dyed—replicate patterns seen in printed textiles, upholstery, ceramics, and glass that exemplify the “art for art’s sake” taste of the aesthetic movement. Notably, the light and dark wood patterns on the turned feet were formed by gluing together (or laminating) several planks of wood and turning them on a lathe. The table demonstrates how artisans pulled out all the stops to create masterworks for display at international exhibitions like the Centennial. The PMA, founded the same year as the latter and as an outgrowth of it, opened in 1877 in the fair’s Memorial Hall.
1 Two are in the Newark Museum in New Jersey, acc. nos. 65.236 a, b. 2 Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630–1730: An Interpretive Catalogue (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), cat. no. 74. 3 Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, American Furniture 1650–1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (New Haven and London: Philadelphia Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2020), nos. 128–131. 4 Philadelphia’s 1811 Journeyman Cabinet and Chair Makers’ Pennsylvania Book of Prices (Philadelphia, 1811) is the earliest known reference to trick-leg tables, indicating that they were being made in Philadelphia prior to 1811. 5 Clark Pearce, Catherine Ebert, and Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, “From Apprentice to Master: The Life and Career of Philadelphia Cabinetmaker George G. Wright” in American Furniture 2007 (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2007), pp. 110–131. 6 Carswell Rush Berlin, “‘A Shadow of a Magnitude’: The Furniture of Thomas Cook and Richard Parkin” in American Furniture 2013 (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2013), pp. 156–95 and Fig. 43.
ALEXANDRA ALEVIZATOS KIRTLEY is the Montgomery-Garvan Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
