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拍品专文
In his The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book (London, 1793), Thomas Sheraton published a related design (fig. 1) and alluded to its diverse functions as follows: "[It] is intended for standing to write at, and there the height is adjusted for this purpose. The door on the right encloses a cupboard for a pot and slippers, and the left side contains a place for day book, ledger, and journal, for a gentlemen's own accounts."
Documented examples by Nehemiah Adams (1769-1840) and Edmund Johnson (active ca. 1793-1811), both of Salem, form the basis of a regional attribution for several secretaries that survive and lend the form the name "Salem Secretary," although scholarship suggests that it was made in other parts of Massachusetts and New England. All feature an undulating cornice broken by square finial plinths, four mullioned and glazed cupboard doors, an out-stepped central section flanked by cupboards and a butler's drawer with a writing section.
The tambour doors in the lower central register are a distinctive characteristic and illustrate the numerous stylistic and decorative variations available to patrons in the first decade of the nineteenth century. A virtually identical example (illustrated in Israel Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection (New York), vol. 2, pp. 518-519, ill. 1237) is attributed to Nehemiah Adams based upon its similarities to the mullion treatment of the labeled Adams' secretary at Winterthur Museum (illustrated in Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966), pp. 223-225, cat. no. 181).
Accompanying Mrs. Blair's records for this secretary are two letters from Fiske Kimball, who was then the Director of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. In his letter dated December 7, 1932, Kimball inquired if she was the owner of the example illustrated in Lockwood. While her exact response is not known, Mr. Kimball followed up with a second letter dated December 19, 1932, in which he made plans to visit Tuxedo Park to see this breakfront secretary, and made reference to the other Salem pieces in her collection. He subsequently illustrated her secretary in his article "Salem Secretaries and Their Makers," The Magazine Antiques (May 1933), pp. 168-170, fig. 7.
Other related secretaries include three bearing the label of Edmund Johnson; of these, one is at Winterthur (illustrated in Montgomery, pp. 222-223, cat. no. 179), a second is in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum, illustrated as the frontispiece to The Magazine Antiques (August 1935); the third was at one time in the collection of Mrs. Walter P. Wright, illustrated in Kimball, fig. 1. Additional similar secretaries include one in the collection of Bayou Bend with a history of ownership in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (see David Warren, et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, 1998), et al., pp. 111-113, cat. no. F179); a secretary in the collection of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, which was owned by Captain Nicholas Easton and descended to Miss Ellen Townsend; one in a private Maryland collection illustrated in Thomas H. Ormsbee, American Collector (August 1939), p. 6 (Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum, no. 64.1524); one once owned by Saturday Evening Post editor George Horace Lorimer and now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, illustrated in an article by Fiske Kimball in the Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, April 1930, a third example at Winterthur, once owned by Israel Sack and illustrated in both Montgomery (pp. 225-226, cat. no. 182) and Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture, p. 179. A similar secretary formerly in the collection of the Ipswitch Historical Society and now in the Mabel Brady Garvan collection at the Yale University Art Gallery exhibits arched mullions and églomisé panels (Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, 1988), pp. 355-357, cat. no. 184).
Documented examples by Nehemiah Adams (1769-1840) and Edmund Johnson (active ca. 1793-1811), both of Salem, form the basis of a regional attribution for several secretaries that survive and lend the form the name "Salem Secretary," although scholarship suggests that it was made in other parts of Massachusetts and New England. All feature an undulating cornice broken by square finial plinths, four mullioned and glazed cupboard doors, an out-stepped central section flanked by cupboards and a butler's drawer with a writing section.
The tambour doors in the lower central register are a distinctive characteristic and illustrate the numerous stylistic and decorative variations available to patrons in the first decade of the nineteenth century. A virtually identical example (illustrated in Israel Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection (New York), vol. 2, pp. 518-519, ill. 1237) is attributed to Nehemiah Adams based upon its similarities to the mullion treatment of the labeled Adams' secretary at Winterthur Museum (illustrated in Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966), pp. 223-225, cat. no. 181).
Accompanying Mrs. Blair's records for this secretary are two letters from Fiske Kimball, who was then the Director of the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. In his letter dated December 7, 1932, Kimball inquired if she was the owner of the example illustrated in Lockwood. While her exact response is not known, Mr. Kimball followed up with a second letter dated December 19, 1932, in which he made plans to visit Tuxedo Park to see this breakfront secretary, and made reference to the other Salem pieces in her collection. He subsequently illustrated her secretary in his article "Salem Secretaries and Their Makers," The Magazine Antiques (May 1933), pp. 168-170, fig. 7.
Other related secretaries include three bearing the label of Edmund Johnson; of these, one is at Winterthur (illustrated in Montgomery, pp. 222-223, cat. no. 179), a second is in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum, illustrated as the frontispiece to The Magazine Antiques (August 1935); the third was at one time in the collection of Mrs. Walter P. Wright, illustrated in Kimball, fig. 1. Additional similar secretaries include one in the collection of Bayou Bend with a history of ownership in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (see David Warren, et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, 1998), et al., pp. 111-113, cat. no. F179); a secretary in the collection of the Redwood Library in Newport, Rhode Island, which was owned by Captain Nicholas Easton and descended to Miss Ellen Townsend; one in a private Maryland collection illustrated in Thomas H. Ormsbee, American Collector (August 1939), p. 6 (Decorative Arts Photographic Collection, Winterthur Museum, no. 64.1524); one once owned by Saturday Evening Post editor George Horace Lorimer and now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, illustrated in an article by Fiske Kimball in the Pennsylvania Museum Bulletin, April 1930, a third example at Winterthur, once owned by Israel Sack and illustrated in both Montgomery (pp. 225-226, cat. no. 182) and Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture, p. 179. A similar secretary formerly in the collection of the Ipswitch Historical Society and now in the Mabel Brady Garvan collection at the Yale University Art Gallery exhibits arched mullions and églomisé panels (Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, 1988), pp. 355-357, cat. no. 184).