AFA Summer 2018

Summer 94 www.afamag.com |  www.incollect.com This was clearly designed to appeal to the perceived taste of the Frenchman, as were the “French beds,” “French Secretary Glass Doors,” and probably the pairs of rosewood and mahogany pier and center tables in the lower and upper drawing rooms. The superb carvings with immaculately carved scrolling details on the couch are firmly attributable to Thomas Wightman, Vose’s London-trained contract woodcarver, whose name is inscribed in ink on the underside of the front rail. The perfection of the long, scrolling curves and classical leafage is typical of the work of Boston’s finest carver. Vose’s charge for the luxury furnishings on the principal receipt was $3554.50 and $110 for the beds. Surprisingly, his actual bill to the city was for $355.45, only 10 percent of the actual value, with the 90 percent balance to be paid later. This probably allowed the aldermen to avoid accusations by the citizenry of wasting taxpayers’ money on what were obviously luxury furnishings for short-term use. The city’s sale at auction of the entire group just after Lafayette’s departure presumably would have covered Vose’s remaining balance and earned a substantial additional premium for the association with the famous Revolutionary War hero. 5 No detailed descriptions of the rooms furnished for the occasion survive, but the invoices, combined with the auction notice, help paint a picture of how elegant and colorful they must have been. Accompanying Vose’s bills were equally detailed bills from leading Boston upholsterer Thomas Hedges, prominent gilder and looking glass maker John Doggett, carpet vendors Ballard & Prince and Joseph Bacon, and an offer by John Mackay of the loan of “a Piano Forte, of American manufacture made in Boston, that will do credit to the manufacturers of our Country” (Fig. 9). The instrument was actually made by his financial partner Alpheus Babcock. Thomas Hedges, another English emigré, worked with Vose as a limited partner until mid-1823; beginning in 1824, he advertised himself as an “Interior Decorator of Fashionable Fig. 10: Continued Drapery , plate 12, in George Smith’s A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London, 1808). The wording in Thomas Hedges’ bill suggests that he created a treatment in this style for two of the windows in the main reception room of Lafayette’s lodgings. Hedges substituted a carved and gilded wreath for the center trophy seen here. Courtesy of the Winterthur Library, Printed Books and Manuscripts Collection (NK2542 S64c).