AFA Summer 2018

Summer 90 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com Classical Elegance for Lafayette’s Visit to Boston, 1824 by Robert D. Mussey, Jr. and Richard C. Nylander Fig. 1: Grecian couch made by Isaac Vose & Son and carved by Thomas Wightman for Lafayette’s visit to Boston in August 1824, and sold at auction a week after his departure. H. 35¼, W. 85, D. 24⅜ in. Birch, mahogany, rosewood graining, oil gilding, brass, original underupholstery, modern stamped wool plush fabric and trims. The purchaser was hardware merchant John Odin, whose 1854 probate inventory listed a “couch from Lafayette’s visit,” and whose step-grandson, Day Otis Kellogg, donated it to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1859. The couch has been reupholstered based on a large remaining fragment of original stamped red plush. Historic New England; Gift of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1923.507). Photo by David Bohl. R esearch into the history of a stylish rosewood-grained couch attributed to Isaac Vose & Son (1819– 1825), a centerpiece of a new exhibit at the Massachusetts Historical Society (Fig. 1), revealed hitherto unknown details of General Lafayette’s visit to Boston in 1824 (Fig. 2) and led to the discovery of a cache of documents related to some of Boston’s best craftsmen at the time. At the outset, it was unclear if the couch in question could be the “couch, made for General Lafayette when he visited Boston,” which was donated in 1859 to the Massachusetts Historical Society and recorded that year in their Proceedings . 1 The couch had subsequently been given by the MHS to Historic New England (then Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) in 1923 with no provenance. Historic New England’s accession file contains only correspondence about its transfer, some later letters, and fragments of its original red plush upholstery fabric and trim tape. Its association with Lafayette had been forgotten by that time. Lafayette stayed at what is now known as the Amory-Ticknor House directly opposite the Massachusetts State House (Fig. 3). A subsequent auction of “SPLENDID FURNITURE” held on behalf of the city of Boston “At the house at the corner of Beacon and Park streets,” the exact location of the Amory-Ticknor House, occurred only a week after General Lafayette left Boston to continue his grand tour of the United States to commemorate the start of the American Revolution (Fig. 4). Although the auction