Some Carved Wooden Busts and Figures on Mid / late 18th Century American Furniture.

Some Carved Wooden Busts 
and Sculpture
on 18th Century American Furniture.

This entry does not pretend to be in anyway definitive - it is a series of notes and images prepared on an ad hoc basis. Hopefully it will receive proper editing in due course.



For an excellent survey of American Mid 18th Century Culture:
It is a very useful introduction to mid 18th century American carvers see -

American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament

By Morrison H. Heckscher, Leslie Greene Bowman.
1992.

Catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum.


Currently available on line with google books.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0IqxqguoyBkC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

______________________

For a list of Boston Furniture Craftsmen.

https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1121

for Boston Furniture and carving see also -

https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1113

_____________________________

Joseph Addison.

Philadelphia

Mahogany

Height 8.5 inches

After a plaster bust by John Cheere (see below).

Private Collection

Illustration from American Rococo... Heckscher et al. 1992.

______________________

The Kirkleatham bust of Addison by John Cheere.

Height approx. 22 inches.

York Museum

http://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-bronzed-plaster-busts-supplied-by.html

____________________________

John Locke and Milton.

Mahogany

Illustrations above from American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament

By Morrison H. Heckscher, Leslie Greene Bowman.
1992.

___________________________


Bust of Milton
Rhode Island History
October 1966.

Rhode Island History
October 1966.

Pub. Rhode Island Historical Society.

http://www.rihs.org/assetts/files/publications/1966_Oct.pdf






____________________________




A Bust of Milton from the Skillins workshop appears on a bookcase of 1785 at the  Beverly Historical Society.

info from -

http://www.chipstone.org/html/publications/1994AF/index1994Mussey.html

_________________________

Plaster Busts of Locke and Milton.

Approx. Half Life Size at West Wycombre Park,

 Supplied by John Cheere.
______________________________





A Masonic Chair.
by

with a bust of Matthew Prior.

From - Journal of Early Southern Decorative arts

November 1976, Vol II, no II.

Pub. by [Winston-Salem] Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts

____________________________________

The Potts Family Desk and Bookcase. Philadelphia.
Sotheby's New York
January 2013.

Lot 512 Sotheby's, New York, 26 Jan 2013.

IMPORTANT AMERICANA: 

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF DR. LARRY MCCALLISTER.

Provenance:

Acquired from a member of the Potts Family and originally thought to have come from their family residence, Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania;

Joe Kindig, Jr., York, Pennsylvania, March 26, 1936;

Sotheby's New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot Du Pont Copeland, January 19, 2002, Sale 7757, lot 262.

LITERATURE

Morrison H. Heckscher, "Living with Antiques:  Mount Cuba in Delaware," The Magazine Antiques, May 1987, pl. V, p. 1081.

"Living with Antiques:  The Delaware Home of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot Copeland," The Magazine Antiques, October 1952, p. 293.

Robert C. Smith, "Finial Busts on Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Furniture," The Magazine Antiques, December 1971, fig. 8, p. 903.

This desk-and-bookcase is a masterpiece of Philadelphia Chippendale case furniture, surviving with its original portrait bust of the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), a popular figure in Philadelphia whose works dominated a "parcel of books'' sent out from London in 1700 by order of William Penn. His popularity continued in the period just before the Revolution because it was believed that, if he were alive, he would have sympathized with the American grievances against the British government (Robert C. Smith, "Finial Busts on Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia Furniture," The Magazine Antiques, December 1971, p. 903). 

The portrait bust is one of fewer than a dozen known on Philadelphia furniture. Characterised by a long, narrow head, appropriately-scaled eyes, and a long commanding nose, this portrait bust appears to be by the same hand as the bust of John Milton on a desk-and-bookcase illustrated as fig. 10 in Smith's article.

This desk-and-bookcase was made for the Potts family of Pottstown, Pennsylvania and was believed to have been among the furnishings at the family home, Pottsgrove. 

Morrison Heckscher notes in "Living with Antiques: Mount Cuba in Delaware," in The Magazine Antiques (May 1987), that this desk was made by the same craftsman who created the Fisher family chest-on-chest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Heckscher, American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985, no. 147, p. 226-8). 

Other case pieces by this unidentified craftsman include a similar desk-and-bookcase with a bust of John Locke illustrated in William M. Hornor, Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture, 1977, pl. 171, a chest-on-chest once owned by Stephen Girard, another with a history of descent from Vincent Loockerman (d. 1785) of Dover, Delaware, a desk-and-bookcase made for Joseph Wharton illustrated in pl. 201 of Hornor, and a high chest at Bayou Bend also made for Jospeh Wharton (see David Warren et. al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection, 1998, F143).

Heckscher has hypothesized that the craftsmen of these exceptional case pieces may be the cabinetmaker Thomas Affleck and the carver James Reynolds, two men known to have worked together in 1772 for William Logan, who originally commissioned the Fisher family chest-on-chest.

Text and Images courtesy Sotheby's New York.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.512.html/2013/so-mccallister-n08959

__________________________





The " Pompadour" Chest of Drawers.
Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Philadelphia.

233 x 113.3 x 62.5 cms.

They say c. 1762 - 65.

With George S Palmer until purchased 1918.

Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Characteristically, these makers took motifs from London pattern books and rearranged them to suit local tastes. Thus, the scroll pediment with finial bust and cornice moldings were taken directly from illustrations in Thomas Chippendale's famous "Gentlemen and Cabinet Maker's Director" (1762), the serpent-and-swan motif in the central bottom drawer from Thomas Johnson's " New Book of Ornaments" (1762).

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/4282

High chest, unidentified cabinetmaker with carving attributed to Martin Jugiez, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1765-1775. Mahogany with yellow poplar, white cedar, yellow pine and brass. H. 96-3/4, W. 46-1/2, D. 25-3/4 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art; gift of Mrs. Henry V. Greenough, 1957. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.This photograph, ca. 1924, shows the chest in the condition it was first exhibited. The fox's head, paw, and the leaves on the finials had been previously restored. The foliate scrolls, fret, and sections of the lower front rail appliqué are missing.

Information and photograph from:

http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=872

Design for a mirror illustrated on pl. 21 of Thomas Johnson's One Hundred and Fifty New Designs (London 1761), adapted by Martin Jugiez for the appliqué on the carved drawer. Jugiez made use of other plates in Johnson for the designs of the cartouche, finials, and flowering vine-carved quarter columns.

__________________________

Photograph from Pinterest.

Courtesy Pook and Pook Inc, Auctioneers
Downington. PA.

Height 98.5"

___________________________

1782

Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Part of the ornament may be from the shop of Boston carvers John and Simeon Skillin (Skillings). The bows, leaves, and flowers on the finial urns (fig. 16) are very similar to those on the chamfered corners of another chest-on-chest that originally belonged to Derby. The latter chest is attributed to Dorchester cabinetmaker Stephen Badlam and the Skillins based on workmanship and on their respective bills to Derby for £19, “exclusive of the carving,” and £6.15.0 for “Carv’d work done for a chest of draws pr. bill given in.

Information and photographs from 

American Furniture

http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/32/American-Furniture-1994/John-Cogswell-and-Boston-Bomb%C3%A9-Furniture:-Thirty-Five-Years-of-Revolution-in-Politics-and-Design

____________________________

Stephen Badlam  and John and Simeon Skillin
Boston.

Maker Cabinetmaker: Stephen Badlam, American, 1751–1815

Carver: John Skillin, American, 1746–1800

Carver: Simeon Skillin, Jr., American, 1757–1806

Chest-on-Chest

1791

Mahogany; front of drawer in architrave, mahogany; other drawer fronts, mahogany veneer on chestnut; eastern white pine; bottom dustboard in lower case, red pine.

101 1/8 x 51 1/2 x 23 3/4 in. (256.9 x 130.8 x 60.3 cm) other (Upper case): 42 13/16 x 19 3/4 in.(108.7 x 50.2 cm) other (Lower case): 46 x 23 3/4 in.(116.8 x 60.3 cm)

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection.

1930.2003

Following the Revolution, some citizens sought domestic objects that would express in the most elaborate ways America’s pride in having achieved independence. 

Shipping magnate Elias Hasket Derby (1739–1799), a prominent citizen of Salem, Massachusetts, could well afford to do so. In commissioning this massive piece from Stephen Badlam, a war veteran from a town south of Boston, Derby took the unusual step of engaging leading Boston sculptors to carve figures for the pediment of the case. 

Rising to the challenge set by their patron, John Skillin and his brother Simeon created a scheme of three females in fashionable Neoclassical dress and distinctive accessories imbued with allegorical meaning. The figure on the left, holding an olive wreath and a palm frond, personifies Peace. On the right is Plenty, clasping a cornucopia. The central figure wears the gilt-sun brooch and laurel wreath associated with Virtue, while the Phrygian cap on a liberty pole is an attribute of Liberty. Through this combination of attributes, she represents America. 

Family tradition has it that Derby and his wife, Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby, gave this piece as a wedding present to their daughter Anstis, who married Benjamin Pickman, Jr., of Salem in 1789.

Made in Dorchester Lower Mills, Massachusetts and made in Boston, Massachusetts

Yale University Art Gallery collection.

Text and photographs above lifted from:

https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/39266


_________________________________

Plate 78, from the first Edition of Chippendale's

The Gentleman's and Cabinet Makers Director, 1754.

__________________

Desk and bookcase
Philadelphia.

Attributed to Benjamin Randolph.


From the Collection of George and Linda Kaufman.

National Gallery of Art.

By the 1750s Philadelphia was the largest colonial city, having more than 25,000 religious and ethnically diverse residents. In the forefront of sophistication and keenly aware of London fashions, its wealthiest citizens desired more elaborately ornamented objects than those made in other colonial centres. Native-born as well as London-trained artisans were in demand as rich merchants and entrepreneurs sought the latest style. This magnificent Philadelphia desk and bookcase,made between 1755 and 1765, is one of the rarest examples of Chippendale American furniture and exemplifies the rococo taste. The monumental upper bookcase has a frieze of triglyphs and rosettes surmounted by a finely carved pitch-pediment that echoes pre-revolutionary architecture as illustrated in contemporaneous design books. 

The abundance and quality of the carving attest to its creator’s talent as well as to the status that it must have conferred on its owner. Centred in the pitch-pediment is a carved styles / coastal urban centers / types of furniture mahogany bust believed to represent the well-known English historian Catharine Macaulay. A prominent political activist in London who supported Englishman John Wilkes, Macaulay was an early proponent of liberty for the American colonists. By the mid -1760s, she was portrayed in numerous English paintings, prints, ceramics, and sculptures, some of which were fashioned as affordable images available to a wide segment of the public. 

Carved busts of males are found on a small number of richly ornamented Philadelphia case pieces, but this image of a female English political activist is especially unusual.

Text and photographs above lifted from:

https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/exhibitions/pdfs/kaufman.pdf


see -
http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/568/American-Furniture-2007/Benjamin-Randolph-Revisited






Cover to American Furniture, 1994 Edition .
Edited by Luke Beckerdite.

Available on line at:


http://www.chipstone.org/publications.php/1/American-Furniture

Trade Card of Benjamin Randolph with Desk / bookcase,
as illustrated in Chippendale's Director.

______________________________


John Welch (1711 - 1789).
 Carver.
Boston, Mass.

One of the most important identifiable carvers of pre-Revolutionary Boston was John Welch. Born in 1711, Welch is famed for carving the “Sacred Codfish” for the Hall of Representatives in the Boston State House in 1736. In 1733 he purchased a lot of land forty by eighty feet in Green Lane, or in Green Street, presumably in anticipation of his marriage to the granddaughter of the prosperous carver George Robinson. The association with the Robinson family was an important one for Welch. He may have served an apprenticeship under Robinson. The unfortunate death of Welch’s young wife in 1736 left Welch with a substantial portion of the Robinson estate. In 1738 and 1743 Welch increased his holdings in the Green Street area. He made his home on Green Lane, but from 1733 until 1758 he kept a shop on the town dock, a good location for a man who was probably primarily a ship carver.

In 1758 Isaac Dupee, a ship carver, petitioned to have the use of the “Town’s shop that John Welch occupied.” In the same year Welch advertised the sale of many household possessions because he proposed “to go to England in a short time.” He did travel to England, presumably on business, but returned to Boston about 1760.

The 1789 inventory of Welch’s estate indicates that he was involved in the sale of imported looking glasses. A list of shop goods includes a gilt framed glass, a mahogany framed glass, and four looking glass frames as well as carving tools and “5 ps Carved Work.”

The inventory of his personal property lists “A Marble slab and frame” and “2 Busts,” an intriguing reference when one recalls the popularity of carved busts as ornaments for casepieces in Boston in the 1770s and 1780s.

Welch was a very prosperous carver in pre - Revolutionary Boston. The list of his household furniture before the 1758 trip to England included: “Large and Small Sconces, Looking Glasses, Chimney and Dressing Glasses, a very handsome japanned Chest of Drawers and Bureau, a Marble topped table supported by Carved Eagles.”

Numerous real estate transactions established Welch as a shrewd businessman. In May, 1774, for example, John Welch bought a lot adjoining his own in Green Lane from John Singleton Copley for £153 and resold it a few weeks later for £253. He also had property in the Bowdoin Square - Sudbury Street area and in 1780 he paid the large tax of £50, more than double the sum paid by any other Boston carver.

Most of the other men designated as carvers in public records seem, like Welch, to have been primarily ship carvers. Joshua Bowles and Thomas Luckis had been keeping shop together along the wharf when their inventory was destroyed by the great fire of 1760. They were also engaged in other aspects of the shipping trade for in addition to the “3 Carved heads and carving tools,” they lost two boat masts, fifteen cod and mackerel lines, and three barrels of flour. A bill from Bowles and Luckis to John Hancock further identifies these carvers as ship carvers. Mr. Hancock was charged £28 for a woman’s head “7 foot long” and £13 more for brackets, a trail board, and two scrolls. By 1780, Joshua Bowles and Thomas Luckis were working separately. At that time Bowles appears to have been slightly more successful, but by Luckis’ death in 1808 he had improved his financial situation and had a house and land on Scotts Court worth $3000.

Text above from:

https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/1113

_________________________

John Welch

From Welch Geneology

Available on line and easily searchable at


https://archive.org/details/welchgenealogy00welc/page/n1

______________________________

The Carved Wooden Bust of Shakespeare.

__________________________________








Joseph Barry and Sons.
132, South Second Street.
Philadelphia.
Trade Card / Label.
c.104/5


Interesting for the depiction of two statues Justice and ?

Image lifted from:


http://www.chipstone.org/article.php/570/American-Furniture-2007/From-Apprentice-to-Master:-The-Life-and-Career-of-Philadelphia-Cabinetmaker-George-G.-Wright