American painted furniture: A new perspective on its decoration and use - Winterthur - Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum's collection

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2002 by Wendy A. Cooper

(29.) For a related pair see Highly Important Americana from the Collection of Stanley Paid Sax (sale 7087, Sotheby's, New York, January 16, 1998, Lot 526); see also Elder and Stokes, American Furniture, pp. 43-45. Another set of chairs owned by the Peabody Essex Museum is similarly constructed and appears to imitate English imparted examples with "Gothic back'd patent japanned and gold ornamented" (Schaffner and Kline, American Painted Furniture, p. 12, Fig. 1.10). In his extensive work on the Seymours, Robert Mussey has noted that John Seymour Jr. (1765-c. 1795) was a decorative painter and could have executed the work on these chairs. If they were made early in the career of John Jr. or one of his younger brothers, that could explain their relatively simple construction. I thank Mr. Mussey for his kindness in sharing his research and observations.

(30.) The only other related table that is also probably New England in origin is illustrated in Baltimore Furniture: The Work of Baltimore and Annapolis Cabinetmakers, p. 166. While this table and its accompanying chairs were supposedly owned originally by Nicholas Rogers (1753-1822) in his home Druid Hill, near Baltimore, the design of the chairs and the presence of birch, maple, and white pine suggest a New England origin.

(31.) Charles Woolsey Lyon, bill, October 2, 1952 (accession file 1952.164, Registration Office, Winterthur Museum).

(32.) Surviving furniture documents this well, but an additional and unique supporting resource is seen in the 1811-1812 drawing/copybook, in the Winterthur Library, of the decorative painter Christian M. Nestell (1793-1880), whose extensive vocabulary of imagery specifically coincides with that seen on furniture of the 1810s through mid-century. For more on Nestell, see Nancy Goyne Evans, "The Christian M. Nestell Drawing Book: A Focus on the Ornamental Painter and His Craft in Early Nineteenth-Century America," in American Furniture, ed. Luke Beckerdite (Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, 1998), pp. 99-163.