拍品專文
One of three desk-and-bookcases known with this distinctive vase-and-vine inlay, this example is part of a group that also includes two candlestands, a fire screen and four chests-of-drawers. See Barquist, American Tables and Looking Glasses (New Haven, 1991), fig. 126; Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (New York, 1966), fig. 177; Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol. III, 1972, p. 830, P3458; Short, "New Additions to a Group of Federal Furniture" Antiques December, 1991): 960-65.
In addition to the characteristic inlay, this secretary shares the decortive oval pinwheel motif evident on the frieze of a related bookcase in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society (Short, pl. III). This example varies from related case pieces, however, in its more slender proportions, straight versus serpentine front, mahogany band rather than light and dark wood string inlay, and in the swelled versus C-scroll outline of the feet.
There are enough distinctions between this bookcse and the related objects which suggest that an artisan independent of but familiar with the output of the main shop, produced this example. Besides the variations noted above, the inlay is rendered by another hand with slight differences in the urn and trailing vines.
This bookcase displays the hallmarks of a rural case piece and was probably made in the same region as the majority of objects from this group. Most of the related objects have histories in central Massachusetts, specifically in the Hardwick, Holland and Brookfield communities located between Worcester and Springfield. One bookcase was owned by the Wheelwright family of Boston, and another is associated with Providence, Rhode Island, based upon a desk-and-bookcase labeled by Adrian Webb and Charles Scott. Webb and Scott were furniture retailers rather than cabinetmakers, however, and although many craftsmen also dealt in the wholesale merchandizing of goods, the attribution to their manufacture is dubious (Barquist, fig. 126).
In addition to the characteristic inlay, this secretary shares the decortive oval pinwheel motif evident on the frieze of a related bookcase in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society (Short, pl. III). This example varies from related case pieces, however, in its more slender proportions, straight versus serpentine front, mahogany band rather than light and dark wood string inlay, and in the swelled versus C-scroll outline of the feet.
There are enough distinctions between this bookcse and the related objects which suggest that an artisan independent of but familiar with the output of the main shop, produced this example. Besides the variations noted above, the inlay is rendered by another hand with slight differences in the urn and trailing vines.
This bookcase displays the hallmarks of a rural case piece and was probably made in the same region as the majority of objects from this group. Most of the related objects have histories in central Massachusetts, specifically in the Hardwick, Holland and Brookfield communities located between Worcester and Springfield. One bookcase was owned by the Wheelwright family of Boston, and another is associated with Providence, Rhode Island, based upon a desk-and-bookcase labeled by Adrian Webb and Charles Scott. Webb and Scott were furniture retailers rather than cabinetmakers, however, and although many craftsmen also dealt in the wholesale merchandizing of goods, the attribution to their manufacture is dubious (Barquist, fig. 126).