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Lot Essay
Displaying excellence in design, construction and carved ornament, this dressing table is a rare survival from mid eighteenth-century Philadelphia that can be firmly attributed to a specific cabinet shop and a specialist carver. Distinctive construction details reveal the practices of the shop of Henry Cliffton (d. 1771) and Thomas Carteret which are documented by a signed high chest dated 1753 and its matching dressing table now at Colonial Williamsburg (see figs. 2,3). Features seen on the signed example and the dressing table offered here include vertical drawer dividers that extend at full height and fit into rabbets in the backboard and dustboards underneath each lower drawer secured by long glueblocks that are triangular in cross-section. Further indicating a common source, these forms all display side skirt profiles of seemingly identical design comprised of a pendant astragal drop flanked by half-round cut-outs and ogee shaping. As indicated by other forms attributed to the same shop, the Cliffton-Carteret partnership favored lively skirt designs, a predilection well illustrated by the front skirt of the dressing table offered here with its pierced ornament and heart-shaped voids. The same profile is seen on a dressing table at Winterthur Museum (fig. 1), which also has knee returns with scrolled embellishments, similarly rendered trifid feet and walnut primary wood with tulip poplar and white cedar secondary woods (Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York, 1952), no. 324).
In design and execution, the carved ornament on the lower central drawer indicates the hand of master-carver Nicholas Bernard (d. 1789) and in particular his work from the late 1750s. Bernard is thought to have executed the shell carvings on the Cliffton-Carteret high chest and dressing table at Colonial Williamsburg and other survivals with the same combination of craftsmanship indicate that the shop and the carver enjoyed a close and frequent working relationship. With its stop-fluted lobes, gouged relief marks and flanking acanthus leaves headed by a looped flourish, all rendered with the linear precision of Bernard’s distinctive style, the drawer ornament on this dressing table typifies Bernard’s shell-carving from the 1750s. While his work is remarkably consistent, subtle variations suggest an evolution of the carver’s work that became increasingly intricate, sophisticated and assured—a progression that can be seen in a comparison between the 1753 Williamsburg forms and a circa 1760 high chest that descended in the Biddle-Drinker family (figs. 4,5). The carving on the dressing table offered here lies between the two and with a single line of gouges encircling the shell and flanking pairs of tendrils in which the inner stem does not overlap the outer, it is closely related to the shell carving attributed to Bernard on a 1755-1760 chest-on-chest at the Historical Society of Dauphin County (Luke Beckerdite and Alan Miller, "A Table's Tale: Craft, Art, and Opportunity in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia," American Furniture 2004, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2004), pp. 15-16, figs. 27, 28).
Other dressing tables that demonstrate the collaboration of the Cliffton-Carteret shop and Bernard include the Van Pelt-Robb family dressing table (Sotheby’s, New York, 26 September 2008, lot 9), the Wistar family dressing table (see www.levygalleries.com, item number 37570) and the Nicholas Biddle dressing table (Sotheby's, New York, 28, 30 and 31 January 1994, lot 1280). For more on the Cliffton-Carteret shop, see Eleanore P. Gadsden, “When Good Cabinetmakers Made Bad Furniture: The Career and Work of David Evans,” American Furniture 2001, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2001), pp. 67-70 and for more on Bernard see Beckerdite and Miller, op. cit., passim). In addition to the dressing table in fig. 1 and the Wistar family example, similar knee returns and trifid feet adorn a high chest with carving possibly by Bernard (Sotheby’s New York, 24-25 January 2014, lot 294) and a set of chairs represented by a side chair at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), pp. 86-87, cat. 42).
Little is known of the dressing table’s history, but at the time of its sale in 2005, the Maine Antique Digest recorded that it had been consigned by a New Hampshire family with Philadelphia roots, suggesting that it may have remained in the family for which it was made for two hundred and fifty years.
In design and execution, the carved ornament on the lower central drawer indicates the hand of master-carver Nicholas Bernard (d. 1789) and in particular his work from the late 1750s. Bernard is thought to have executed the shell carvings on the Cliffton-Carteret high chest and dressing table at Colonial Williamsburg and other survivals with the same combination of craftsmanship indicate that the shop and the carver enjoyed a close and frequent working relationship. With its stop-fluted lobes, gouged relief marks and flanking acanthus leaves headed by a looped flourish, all rendered with the linear precision of Bernard’s distinctive style, the drawer ornament on this dressing table typifies Bernard’s shell-carving from the 1750s. While his work is remarkably consistent, subtle variations suggest an evolution of the carver’s work that became increasingly intricate, sophisticated and assured—a progression that can be seen in a comparison between the 1753 Williamsburg forms and a circa 1760 high chest that descended in the Biddle-Drinker family (figs. 4,5). The carving on the dressing table offered here lies between the two and with a single line of gouges encircling the shell and flanking pairs of tendrils in which the inner stem does not overlap the outer, it is closely related to the shell carving attributed to Bernard on a 1755-1760 chest-on-chest at the Historical Society of Dauphin County (Luke Beckerdite and Alan Miller, "A Table's Tale: Craft, Art, and Opportunity in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia," American Furniture 2004, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2004), pp. 15-16, figs. 27, 28).
Other dressing tables that demonstrate the collaboration of the Cliffton-Carteret shop and Bernard include the Van Pelt-Robb family dressing table (Sotheby’s, New York, 26 September 2008, lot 9), the Wistar family dressing table (see www.levygalleries.com, item number 37570) and the Nicholas Biddle dressing table (Sotheby's, New York, 28, 30 and 31 January 1994, lot 1280). For more on the Cliffton-Carteret shop, see Eleanore P. Gadsden, “When Good Cabinetmakers Made Bad Furniture: The Career and Work of David Evans,” American Furniture 2001, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2001), pp. 67-70 and for more on Bernard see Beckerdite and Miller, op. cit., passim). In addition to the dressing table in fig. 1 and the Wistar family example, similar knee returns and trifid feet adorn a high chest with carving possibly by Bernard (Sotheby’s New York, 24-25 January 2014, lot 294) and a set of chairs represented by a side chair at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), pp. 86-87, cat. 42).
Little is known of the dressing table’s history, but at the time of its sale in 2005, the Maine Antique Digest recorded that it had been consigned by a New Hampshire family with Philadelphia roots, suggesting that it may have remained in the family for which it was made for two hundred and fifty years.