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Lot Essay
Signed by Robert Lord, this clothes press is the only known form that can be ascribed to the group of artisans who worked in the shop of Nathaniel Holmes (1703-1774), a master-merchant working in the furniture trade from 1725 to 1740. Described by Brock Jobe, various accounts of Holmes’ shop demonstrate that his workforce consisted of ten cabinetmakers and joiners, including Robert Lord, and several specialists, such as turners and japanners and reveal that together, these workmen were capable of fashioning all the decorative treatments seen on this clothes press. References to inlaid stars, radiating fans, stringing and veneer are all contained in two workmen's bills from the late 1730s. Richard Woodward billed Holmes for "putting in a Shell" and "Setting 2 shells," probably referring to both the Mariner's-compass stars and the radiating fans. Just a year later, John Mudge listed "a Case of dros soled ends and stringed," a description which Jobe surmises refers to a form with solid sides and, in contrast, a veneered front facade as well as string inlay (Brock Jobe, “The Boston Furniture Industry, 1720-1740,” Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1974), pp. 13-24).
Little is known of Lord apart from his employment with Holmes. Possibly a descendant of Samuel or Nathaniel Lord, settlers of Charlestown in the late seventeenth century, he married Katherine Haley in 1738. The marriage date of 1738 suggests that he was born in the 1710s and at about that time, finished his training with Holmes. While the signature could have been made by Lord during his tenure with Holmes, it is also possible that he signed the work as a master of his own shop. (“Boston Furniture Craftsmen, Appendix A,” Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1974), p. 287).
Little is known of Lord apart from his employment with Holmes. Possibly a descendant of Samuel or Nathaniel Lord, settlers of Charlestown in the late seventeenth century, he married Katherine Haley in 1738. The marriage date of 1738 suggests that he was born in the 1710s and at about that time, finished his training with Holmes. While the signature could have been made by Lord during his tenure with Holmes, it is also possible that he signed the work as a master of his own shop. (“Boston Furniture Craftsmen, Appendix A,” Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1974), p. 287).