Eighteenth-century Philadelphia case furniture at Stenton

Magazine Antiques, May, 2002 by Philip D. Zimmerman

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Laura Keim Stutman, Joe and Jenifer Kindig, Christopher Storb, and Richard Mones in the preparation of this article. My research was funded by Mr. and Mrs. John B. M. Place and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

(1.) Armitt's death date is uncertain. William Macpherson Hornor Jr., the generally recognized source for the dates, reports death dates of 1751 and 1752 cites a reference to Armitt in 1762 (Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture: William Penn to George Washington, with Special Reference to the Philadelphia-Chippendale School [Privately printed, Philadelphia, 1935], pp. 2, 37, 43, 109).

(2.) The only objects valued more highly in Logan's estate were a looking glass and a clock that were valued at eight pounds each. The 1752 inventory is transcribed as appendix IX in Raymond V Shepherd Jr., "James Logan's Stenton: Grand Simplicity in Quaker Philadelphia" (master's thesis, University of Delaware, Newark, 1968), pp. 196-198. The original is in the Register of Wills, Philadelphia City Hall. The 1754 inventory is transcribed as appendix A-2 in a typescript of the secretary's accession record at Stenton.

(3.) Hornor, Blue Book, p. 55. Regrettably, the author provides no further information or source.

(4.) Patches on the insides of the door stiles adjacent to these bottom panels reinforce the likelihood that some kind of wood panel was originally there.

(5.) The Philadelphia cabinetmaker Josiah Claypoole advertised "Desk and Book cases, with Arch'd, Pediment and O.G. Heads" in the South Carolina Gazette of March 22, 1740, shortly after his arrival in Charleston. See The Arts and Crafts in Philadelphia, Maryland, and South Carolina: Part 1, 1721-1785 Gleanings from Newspapers, comp. Alfred Coxe Prime (1929; reprint Da Capo Press, New York, 1969), p. 163. Hornor, Blue Book, p. 55, describes O. G. heads as "bold cornices composed of mouldings."

(6.) This configuration does not include the more common one of a wide center drawer flanked by very narrow "candle" drawers that also support the hinged lid.

(7.) The drawers have had at least three sets of pulls. The three small spring-locked drawers probably had no escutcheons originally.

(8.) The stringing is lighter than the mahogany drawer fronts, but finish and darkening with age interfere with wood identifications. Assuming that the cock-beading was trimmed flush with the drawer front, the lighter color may result from more recent exposure.

(9.) Jack L. Lindsey dates this secretary to c. 1725-1730 without explanation in his book Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758 (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999), p. 147, No. 71.

(10.) Cited in Shepherd, "James Logan's Stenton," p. 197.

(11.) See Lindsey, Worldly Goods, p. 167, No. 115, for a pair of side chairs identified as originally owned by James Logan and used at Stenton. Supporting documentation for this provenance has not been published. If these Chairs are the ones cited in the Logan inventory, the value of the upholstery must have been substantial.