Lot Essay
Purchased by Dwight Blaney in 1893, this chest was one of the first items acquired in what was to become one of the most impressive collections of American decorative arts of its time. In a letter to his future wife, Blaney wrote:
I hope we will be able to go to Salem tomorrow....I
want you to see the furniture at Stickneys', which I
asked him to reserve...and said he would sell the $50
chest of drawers...and the $25 mirrror....The chest of
drawers and the mirror are first class pieces.
(Stillinger, The Antiquers, p. 107)
Cabinetmakers of the 18th and early 19th centuries rarely labeled their objects, making identification a challenge based upon a handful of surviving documented examples. This chest by Thomas Needham, which bears his label however, is a rare exception. The only known labeled chest by Needham is an important historical doecument and an invaluable benchmark for future study and comparison.
Thomas Needham, the son of a cabinetmaker by the same name, was baptized in Salem in 1780. By 1811, he established himself as a prominent craftsman, assuming the shop of fellow tradesman Joseph McComb on Charter Street. This move pinpoints the date after which this chest was made, as the label bears the Charter Street address. Needham continued to work on Charter Street into the 1820's, at which point he opened a furniture warehouse on Essex Street (Margaret Burke Cluny, "Salem Federal Furniture," University of Delaware, Master's Thesis, 1976, pp. 200-205). Needham's portrait hangs at the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. He died in 1858.
I hope we will be able to go to Salem tomorrow....I
want you to see the furniture at Stickneys', which I
asked him to reserve...and said he would sell the $50
chest of drawers...and the $25 mirrror....The chest of
drawers and the mirror are first class pieces.
(Stillinger, The Antiquers, p. 107)
Cabinetmakers of the 18th and early 19th centuries rarely labeled their objects, making identification a challenge based upon a handful of surviving documented examples. This chest by Thomas Needham, which bears his label however, is a rare exception. The only known labeled chest by Needham is an important historical doecument and an invaluable benchmark for future study and comparison.
Thomas Needham, the son of a cabinetmaker by the same name, was baptized in Salem in 1780. By 1811, he established himself as a prominent craftsman, assuming the shop of fellow tradesman Joseph McComb on Charter Street. This move pinpoints the date after which this chest was made, as the label bears the Charter Street address. Needham continued to work on Charter Street into the 1820's, at which point he opened a furniture warehouse on Essex Street (Margaret Burke Cluny, "Salem Federal Furniture," University of Delaware, Master's Thesis, 1976, pp. 200-205). Needham's portrait hangs at the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. He died in 1858.