Philadelphia Antiques Show 2018

35 Pehr Kalm, Travels into North America , vol. 1, trans. John Reinhold Forster (London: T. Lowndes, 1772), 327, https://archive.org/details/travelsintonorth01kalm_3. 36 Jennifer L. Anderson, Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2012). 37 Morrison H. Hecksher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, II. Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Random House, 1985), 209. 38 Jack L. Lindsey, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680 – 1785 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999), 131. 39 “Our Story: 1930-1940,” About Us, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed March 1, 2018, http://www.philamuseum.org/information/45-228-24.html; “B ust of Eli Kirk Price,” The Philadelphia Museum of Art, accessed March 1, 2018, http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/185814.html. 40 “Martha Stokes Price,” Mainline Media News , April 7, 2009, http://www.mainlinemedianews.com/archive/martha-stokes-price/article_f2d447e7-8400-5456-ac62-818d212c785b.html. F rom early joiners and cabinetmakers like the unknown maker of this chest of drawers to modern artists like Emil Milan, walnut has always been an important material for woodworkers in Philadelphia. The abundant wood of the North American colonies was a revelation to artisans arriving from overharvested regions of Europe. Finnish botanist Pehr (Peter) Kalm visited North America on an exploratory commission from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and reported in 1748, “The joiners say, that among the trees of this country they chiefly use the black walnut-trees. . . . Of the black walnut-trees (Juglans nigra) there is yet a sufficient quantity. However careless people take pains enough to destroy them, and some peasants even use them as fewel [sic].” 35 After displacing the Lenni Lenape of the Delaware River Valley, colonists found extensive amounts of black walnut available for their use. Walnut came to be viewed as a similarly fine domestic alternative to the imported mahogany, which was harvested, frequently with enslaved labor, in Central America and the Caribbean. 36 This chest of drawers is a particularly early surviving Philadelphia-made example of this form. The surface of the piece appears to be original, and the brass escutcheons and drawer pulls may be original as well, several with apparent losses. Though the locking mechanisms on the interiors of the drawers have long been removed, their former presence indicates the value of what was once held in these drawers. Chests of drawers of this type were generally used to store various kinds of textiles, which often had a greater monetary value than furniture during the eighteenth century. 37 The straight lines of the top and canted corners running down the side create a strong profile and add to the sculptural presence of this piece of furniture. While round ball feet had been preferred in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the tight ogee, or S-curve, of the feet on this chest of drawers signal the rising ascendancy of the baroque style in the colonies. These feet are a forerunner of the more anthropomorphic ball-and-claw feet that became the foot of choice for Philadelphia furniture in the second half of the eighteenth century. 38 This chest of drawers has no known provenance and is not attributed to a particular maker. Yet, it offers significant insights into the patterns of mid-eighteenth century production, style, and taste, and stands in its own right as a work of art. It was the gift of Martha Stokes Price, a volunteer and benefactor of the Museum who grew up with close ties to this institution: her father, J. Stogdell Stokes, was the president from 1933 until his death in 1948, and her husband’s uncle, Eli Kirk Price, served as the previous president from 1926 to 1933. 39 Martha, her husband John Price, and her father were all lovers and collectors of eighteenth-century American art, particularly furniture and the arts of the Pennsylvania Germans. J. Stogdell Stokes donated a range of gifts to the Museum, including metalwork, furniture, ceramics, textiles, tools, and baskets. Martha Stokes Price built upon her father’s generous legacy, leaving a large bequest of furniture, ceramics, and metalwork. 40 Chest of Drawers Colonial 1745-1755 Walnut, tulip poplar, yellow pine, white cedar 33 1/2 × 36 × 21 inches (85.1 × 91.4 × 53.3 cm) Bequest of Martha Stokes Price, 2014 2014-145-20 Artist Unknown, Chest of Drawers W 127 W