Charlestonians abroad - exhibit at Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina

Magazine Antiques, April, 1999 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

From the 1740s to the eve of the Civil War Charleston, South Carolina, was the economic and cultural capital of the South. Exports of naval stores, rice, indigo, and cotton supported a wealthy group of planters who divided their time between plantation and city. In Charleston they built large houses furnished with the most fashionable goods from Europe, particularly London. An exhibition that explores the cultural exchange between Charleston and Europe, especially England, is on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston from April 9 to July 3. Entitled In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860, it is presented with the cooperation of Historic Charleston Foundation. Some 145 objects are on view including paintings, ceramics, silver, textiles, and furniture from American and European public and private collections.

Charlestonians were at home on both sides of the Atlantic. Many were educated in England and others embarked on the grand tour or conducted business abroad. Portraits were much in demand in the houses of wealthy South Carolinians, whose likenesses were painted by the leading artists of the day, including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Ramsay, and Zoffany and the American expatriates West, Copley, and Stuart. By the early nineteenth century artists from both the northern United States and Europe began to visit Charleston and the tide of patronage shifted back to our shores.

Commissioning British artists and craftsmen was made easy by the enormous amount of trade taking place between England and South Carolina. In London during the 1740s we know of the existence of four merchant houses that specialized in the Carolina trade. Peter Manigault, one of Charleston's leading citizens, epitomized the easy interchange between the two shores. The son of the city's wealthiest merchant, planter, and banker, he left to study law in England in 1750, remaining for nearly five years. While in London he had his portrait painted by Allan Ramsay. Back in the Carolinas in 1754, he practiced law until he entered politics and eventually he operated his family's plantations. His grand Charleston house was completed in 1771, prompting him to write to Benjamin Stead, a Charleston merchant working in London, that he was "in need of some Plate & Furniture of which I inclose you a List....You will advance what is wanting & I suppose the next Crop of Indigo will pay for it. I suppose you will think either my Wife or myself very extravagant. I should almost think so myself. If I had not seen [Miles] Brewton & [Thomas] L[oughto]n Smiths Bills for Furniture & Plate which I assure you, are twice as large." Charlestonians either purchased furniture directly from London or they commissioned pieces from London cabinetmakers who had immigrated to Charleston and who fashioned pieces that closely resembled those they had made in England.

The city's reliance on British goods waned in the wake of embargoes and the War of 1812, so that by 1820 Charlestonians looked to New York City for fashionable furnishings. While members of the most affluent families still went abroad, they tended to purchase paintings and small objets d'art instead of large suites of furniture.

The catalogue of the exhibition, published by the University of South Carolina Press, contains essays by Maurie McInnis, Robert A. Leath, Angela D. Mack, J. Thomas Savage, and Susan Ricci Stebbins, and contributions by other scholars. It may be obtained from the Gibbes Museum of Art's museum store by telephoning 843-722-2706.