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Lot Essay
Displaying bold and whimsical inlaid decoration, this sideboard illustrates the work of an inventive and idiosyncratic craftsman or furniture shop working in rural New England. The spreadwing eagles and icicle inlay are visually similar to that seen on furniture made by Nathan Lombard (1777-1847) of southern Worcester County, Massachusetts and suggest that the maker of the sideboard offered here was familiar with Lombard's work (Brock Jobe and Clark Pearce, "Sophistication in Rural Massachusetts: The Inlaid Cherry Furniture of Nathan Lombard," American Furniture 1998, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, 1998), pp. 181-186, figs. 32-35, 38, 40). The unusual angular shaping to the cupboard under the central bowed door contrasts with Lombard's sideboards, which generally feature straight-fronted central drawers over bowed cupboard doors flanked by rounded sides, a common design for the form. Furthermore, the sideboard's use of both yellow pine and chestnut for its secondary woods suggests a locale further south from Massachusetts' Worcester County--possibly the Connecticut River Valley or Rhode Island and the neighboring regions.
According to a letter written by Faith A. Childs, whose family consigned the sideboard to auction in 1994, the sideboard was owned by her maternal grandfather, Henry Champion Jones (b. 1856). Faith's mother, Mrs. Charles D. Childs (wife of the founder of the Childs Gallery on Boston's Newbury Street), recorded that the sideboard "came from the Jones Family" and was shipped from Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard to Sproats, an old Oliver family house purchased by her father in Middleboro, Massachusetts. The piece may have been previously owned by his grandparents, members of the Gilbert, Jones, Norris and Smith families of Connecticut and Martha's Vineyard or possibly those of his wife, Ethel Bowditch (b. 1873) (see Francis Bacon Towbridge, The Champion Genealogy (New Haven, Connecticut, 1891), p. 333). Sproats was used as a summer home by the family until the 1930s or 1940s and at that time, the sideboard was moved to Stow, Massachusetts, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Childs, where it remained until 1994.
According to a letter written by Faith A. Childs, whose family consigned the sideboard to auction in 1994, the sideboard was owned by her maternal grandfather, Henry Champion Jones (b. 1856). Faith's mother, Mrs. Charles D. Childs (wife of the founder of the Childs Gallery on Boston's Newbury Street), recorded that the sideboard "came from the Jones Family" and was shipped from Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard to Sproats, an old Oliver family house purchased by her father in Middleboro, Massachusetts. The piece may have been previously owned by his grandparents, members of the Gilbert, Jones, Norris and Smith families of Connecticut and Martha's Vineyard or possibly those of his wife, Ethel Bowditch (b. 1873) (see Francis Bacon Towbridge, The Champion Genealogy (New Haven, Connecticut, 1891), p. 333). Sproats was used as a summer home by the family until the 1930s or 1940s and at that time, the sideboard was moved to Stow, Massachusetts, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Childs, where it remained until 1994.