An Antiques Book Preview - September 1965

By Charles F. Montgomery, Senior research fellow, Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum

SWEEPING CHANGES in American cabinetmaking and furniture styles closely parallel the emergence and coalescence of the thirteen American colonies into one nation. As self-reliant individuals and as craftsmen able to turn their hands to any task, some cabinetmakers, such as Stephen Badlam, held important posts as leaders in the Revolutionary Army; others, including David Evans, made tents and a hundred other necessities for the American forces. After the peace, and during the forty years now generally called the Federal era, the United States, still primarily an agricultural country, became increasingly concerned with manufacturing, commerce, and trade. American cabinetmakers were quick to take advantage of the opportunities in this time of growth and expansion as new markets for new products were created.

The first intimation of the stylistic changes that were about to occur in American furniture is found in the small desk upon which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The line inlay in this small writing box (now in the Smithsonian Institution) made by Benjamin Randolph in Philadelphia was a harbinger of the neoclassical styles that became current almost immediately after the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1788. The new nation was receptive to new ideas. Chippendale furniture was now old-fashioned in London (still the fashion capital for America), as clearly set forth by Archibald Alison in his Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste (1790):

Strong and Massy Furniture is everywhere vulgar and unpleasing.

Some years ago every article of furniture was made in what was called the Chinese Taste … To this succeeded the Gothic Taste . . . The Taste which now reigns is that of the Antique. Everything we now use, is made in imitation of those models which have been lately discovered in Italy.

This was the result of the revolution in taste set in motion in the 1760’s by Robert Adam and his brothers whose innovations and designs incorporating classical ornament and emphasizing linear relationships had a pro¬found effeot upon architecture and every art and craft in England after about 1770. Although old forms lingered on, new patterns appeared each year thereafter in Lon¬don cabinet shops. Usually these were known in the trade by the names of their craftsmen inventors, such as “Buckley’s pattern” and “Curwen’s pattern.” Although to the public in this country and apparently in London the styles were anonymous, they were summarized and illustrated in The London Cabinet-Makers’ Book of Prices (for workmanship) and Hepplewhite’s The Cabinet¬Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide. Both were published in 1788! These two books and those of Thomas Sheraton published slightly later gave currency to the new styles in the United States. The book of prices, which appears to have been widely used, listed rates of pay for making all standard furniture forms with innumerable optional details. They thus provided the fundamentals of form and ornament with wide latitude” for individual interpretation. When in the 1790’s American price books incorporating demands for higher rates were published, the idea of Federal strength through union was not forgotten by the workmen. Imbued with the idea of freedom, the journeymen’s societies, really unions, appealed to their fellows in other cities and other crafts for support. In New York they even modeled their plea on the Declaration of Independence.

It is not easy to find a satisfactory name for these anonymous fashions in furniture which evolved for the most part in the shops of the cabinetmakers. As a result of the publications associated with the names of George and Alice Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton, the name of Hepplewhite has often been applied to the delicate inlaid and carved furniture with essentially linear forms of the 1780’s and the early 1790’s, and the name of Sheraton has been used to designate furniture first made about 1790, often employing turned or reeded supports and frequently with bowed (elliptic) and/ or hollowed fades. However, these names are confusing because there is considerable overlap in the styles associated with the two men-as would be expected since their books were issued at approximately the same time, and if, as I strongly suspect, both men were primarily reporters rather than creators of original styles. Unquestionably their books played an important part in the dissemination of London fashions, but I doubt that many of them were original to either Hepplewhite or Sheraton. This is a question that deserves a great deal of further study.

In the catalog of American Furniture: The Federal Period (1788-1825) I have adopted whenever possible the names actually used by the cabinetmakers themselves, and have attempted to approximate the actual dates of manufacture for each piece. I believe that the term “Federal furniture” is appropriate for these pieces. In Philadelphia, and perhaps elsewhere, furniture was made by the Federal Society of Cabinetmakers, and many pieces of the period were carved or inlaid with the American eagle, symbol of the Federal union. Also, appropriately for furniture with ornament and sometimes forms derived from Greek and Roman sources, the term Federal seems to have embodied more than a little of classical idea and ideal in a country where the study of the classics and a knowledge of Greek and Latin were basic ingredients of higher education and where the “Grand Federal Edifice” in the Philadelphia Federal Procession was conceived as a domed temple supported by thirteen Corinthian columns.

It might be assumed that American furniture, having been modeled on English furniture, is like English furniture. It is not. Many facets of American government are modeled on English institutions. Few would say they are imitations. They are indeed new syntheses. This is also true of American furniture; the differences are subtle. Many of the parts are similar, but they are combined in different ways and often in different proportions.

American furniture has stood the test of time. Thousands of pieces have survived in American families, and many more probably exist scattered unrecognized over the face of the globe. This study is based on about one thousand pieces in the Winterthur collection, 491 of which are included and illustrated in the book. To understand anyone of these pieces of furniture, one must understand the organization of the crafts that produced it, the materials employed, local preferences for ornament and decoration, and other information not readily available. Over the last one hundred and fifty years, many original names for furniture forms have been lost, and the functions which they were to serve obscured. My findings on these subjects have been summarized in five introductory chapters, and in twenty short introductory essays on the various forms. The detail illustrations of inlays and carving and the charts showing local use of woods are an initial attempt to plot regional preferences and practice