Eighteenth-century Philadelphia case furniture at Stenton

Magazine Antiques, May, 2002 by Philip D. Zimmerman

Some students of American furniture may wonder that the high chest and dressing table were held in such esteem at Stenton. Their form and decoration--specifically the four-drawer arrangement and square cabriole legs ending in cuff moldings and Spanish feet--are traditionally associated with rural manufacture, notably southern New Jersey and not Philadelphia. In fact, very few pieces of such furniture survive with any useful documentation about their origins. The New Jersey association stems from general statements by Luke Vincent Lockwood (1872-1951) writing in 1926 and William M. Hornor Jr. (1897-1969) writing in 1935. The latter observed: "This foot generally is credited to South Jersey simply because it has been found there most frequently." Subsequent furniture historians have reiterated these associations, but without heeding Hornor's qualification: "That all were made in the one locality is, of course, an exaggeration," and he illustrates a Philadelphia example. The Newark Museum curator Margaret E. Wh ite (1890-1974), for example, wrote in 1958 that "according to [Wallace] Nutting [1861-1941], the form of cuff carved in one piece with the leg is peculiar to New Jersey." Nutting makes no such claim and identifies dressing tables with this foot as from New Jersey Philadelphia, and New England (the last locale being erroneous). (12) Among the few documented examples is a high chest signed by Richard (b. 1724) and Isaac Moss (1726-1790) and now at Wright's Ferry Mansion in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Genealogical research by John J. Snyder Jr. suggests that these two brothers were born in Salem County, New Jersey By the late 1740s, however, they and their parents, Abraham and Rebeckah, were in Philadelphia. The Moss brothers probably signed the high chest in the late 1740s, upon completing their training and establishing themselves as full-fledged cabinetmakers. (13)

The Logan suite further fixes the origins of this furniture in Philadelphia. Based on James Logan's other furnishings and purchases, he almost certainly acquired the dressing table and high chest from a Philadelphia maker. Although the maker's identity is not known, on November 1, 1738, Logan acquired from Joseph Pashall nineteen brass handles at [pounds sterling]1 8s. 6d., three escutcheons at 3s., and "2 Suits of Drawer Locks" at 6s. (14) This seemingly innocuous order for furniture brasses confirms Logan's ownership of the Copeland high chest and dressing table and establishes a date of manufacture. The number of brass bandies and escutcheons not only fits this suite but does so to the near exclusion of all other suites of high chest and dressing table because of the four-drawer dressing table, which has no escutcheons and four, rather than five, handles. All the chased and engraved brasses on the high chest are original (see Pl. IIIb), whereas those on the dressing table are replacements.

Both case pieces survive in excellent condition and clearly document cabinetmaking practices of that time. The curly maple from which they are made was described by the visiting Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm (1716-1779) in 1748 as "woods being as it were marbled within; it is much used in all kinds of joiners' work... [and] much dearer than those made of the wild cherry or of black walnut." Kalm explained that "you frequently find trees whose outsides are marbled but their insides are not," (15) justifying in part the high valuation placed on the Logan suite in the 1752 inventory The drawers exhibit an early type of construction in which Atlantic white cedar bottoms are nailed directly to the undersides of the yellow pine sides. Thin strips of wood cover the nail-heads so that they do not cut into the drawer supports. Philadelphia cabinetmakers soon eliminated the nailhead problem by sliding the bottom boards into grooves cut into the drawer sides. (16)