AFA Summer 2019

Antiques & Fine Art 103 2019 Fig. 9: Detail of a side rail of the chair in fig. 8 showing lamination seams. Another lamination seam is visible underneath the slip seat on the top of the rail. value of weighing all physical evidence when identifying objects. Types of wood, specific construction details, and design nuance all contribute to reliable results. The fact that some objects may lie outside well-established patterns and norms helps test and retest the assumptions of furniture history.  Philip D. Zimmerman is a museum and decorative arts consultant based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 1. Blockfront furniture was made in coastal New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and some isolated communities throughout the South. Lee Ellen Griffith illustrates a Pennsylvania spice box with blocked drawers behind the front door in The Pennsylvania Spice Box: Paneled Doors and Secret Drawers (West Chester, Pa.: Chester County Historical Society, 1986), cat. no. 23. Thanks to Jay Stiefel for this reference. 2. Margaretta Markle Lovell, “Boston Blockfront Furniture,” in Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston, Mass.: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974), 84. 3. See the 1782 John Cogswell chest-on-chest and an unsigned desk and bookcase in Gilbert T. Vincent, “The Bombé Furniture of Boston,” Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston: Colonial Society of Mass., 1974), 179–80, figs. 125–26. Tympanum carving, when it exists on Philadelphia furniture, springs from the void borders rather than from more complex, intertwined compositions across the front. 4. William Macpherson Hornor , Jr., Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington (Philadelphia, Pa.: privately printed, 1935), pl. 293; J. Michael Flanigan, American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1986), cat. no. 31; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, II , Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Random House, 1985), cat. no. 166 5. Barry Greenlaw, “Assessing American Furniture: A New Perspective,” Arts in Virginia 16 (1976): 25. Greenlaw reported that the desk and bookcase, owned by the Virginia Museum of Art at the time, had been examined at Winterthur. In the early 1990s, the pediment carving was deemed to be a replacement and was removed. 6. For related interiors, see Hornor, Blue Book, pls. 191–92; Greenlaw, “Assessing American Furniture,” p. 26. Christopher P. Monkhouse and Thomas S. Michie, American Furniture in Pendleton House (Providence, R.I.: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1986), cat. no. 42. 7. Samuel T. Freeman & Co., Rare Early American Furniture , Philadelphia, September 17–20, 1945, lot 263. 8. Thanks to antiques dealer Philip W. Bradley. 9. Clement E. Conger and Alexandra W. Rollins, Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), cat. no. 13, 94–95. 10. Gilbert T. Vincent, “The Bombé Furniture of Boston,” in Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston: Colonial Society of Mass., 1974), 137–96. 11. A bombé linen press (not examined by the author) has laminated sides to create the bombé shape. It was not identified as Philadelphia, although its carved finial bust was, suggesting reluctance to assign a bombé form to that region. See Sotheby’s, Important Americana: Furniture and Folk Art (New York, January 16-17, 1999, lot 742. 12. Batty Langley, The City and Country Builder’s and Workman’s Treasury of Designs (London 1740), pl. 112; Thomas Chippendale, The Gentleman & Cabinet-Maker’s Director (London 1754), pl. 135. 13. Griffith, Pennsylvania Spice Box, cat. nos. 11, 13, 16, 18–20, 27, 52. 14. Letter to Kelly Kinzle from Edward LaFond dated October 12, 2009, in which clock historian LaFond identifies Wills as the probable maker. The dial bears many similarities to a Godschalk clock in Edwin A. Battison and Patricia E. Kane, The American Clock, 1725-1865: From the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973), cat. no. 25.