Winter 2016

2016 Antiques & Fine Art 139 Fig. 3: Sideboard, or Console Table, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and made by John Aitken, painted and gilded by George Bridport. Philadelphia, 1808. Tulip poplar, probably pine, gilded and painted decoration, gilded metal rosettes, later mirror, cotton velvet. H. 41¼, W. 65½, D. 23½ inches. Inscribed “Thos Wetherill” on backing board and then “49 3/4 x 29” (which are the dimensions of the backboard); “A” on inside of back rail. Philadelphia Museum of Art; Purchased with the gift (by exchange) of Mrs. Alex Simpson, Jr., and A. Carson Simpson, and with funds contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Raley and various donors (1986-126-7). Fig. 3a: The inside face of the rear rail of figure 3 is marked with the above letter “A.” While house carpenter Thomas Wetherill (1765–1824) inscribed, in graphite, the backboard of the back mirror that he framed, no other rails have a prominent block letter. Taken together with the documentary information, it may be a mark denoting that Aitken’s shop was the nucleus from which it was made—where many artisans came and went to work on the suite. CASE” (perhaps like Washington’s) and “Drawing-Room CHAIRS of new fashion, Mahogany CHAIRS, Together with WINDSOR CHAIRS of all colours.”  10 The advertisement also noted that the two men “had long experience in London,” a claim that cannot be ruled out. By 1798, Cocks and Aitken were operating a wareroom at Sixth and Chestnut as well as a shop at 79 Dock Street, closer to the waterfront, where they advertised old furniture to be traded in and houses to be furnished “by the week, month, or year.” Cocks died in 1799 and named Aitken as co-executor with George Hog, the former Philadelphia cabinetmaker who was then working in his native Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a predominantly Scots-Irish settlement rife with cabinetmakers, including Henry Connelly (1770– 1826) and Robert McGuffin (1780–after 1863). 11 From 1800 Aitken operated out of the two shops that he had shared with Cocks—at 79 Dock Street and 34 South Sixth Street (also identified as Chestnut above Sixth Street and 145 Chestnut)—where he completed commissions for the City of Philadelphia and many of its most prominent citizens. In 1801, he took on George G. Wright as an apprentice. Wright trained with Aitken until at least 1805 and, in 1811, was the foreman in the shop of Joseph B. Barry (1757–1838) when he made a sideboard designed by George Bridport for William and Mary Waln. 12 In 1806 a fire that started at the house “occupied by Mr. Vallence, Upholsterer, in Front-street, between Walnut and Chestnut-streets,” struck the Dock Street warehouse, and spread to Aitken’s shop. 13 After the fire Aitken centralized his business at Chestnut and Sixth, from where he directed the making of the Walns’ furniture. 14