Living with antiques: A Saint Louis couple collects

Magazine Antiques, May, 2002 by Patricia E. Kane

In 1978, inspired by the first Decorative Arts Trust meeting, which was held in New Harmony, Indiana, and included as speakers Wendell Garrett, Berry B. Tracy (1933--1984), Joe Kindig III, and others, a Saint Louis couple purchased a simple New England Federal period card table and began a collection of early Americana. From that modest beginning, they have brought together an assemblage of significant examples of American furniture, silver, needlework, and ceramics, many of which were included in the exhibition Useful Beauty: Early American Decorative Arts from St. Louis Collections, held at the Saint Louis Art Museum in 1999. (1) In recent years the couple decided to install eighteenth-century paneling and flooring in their 1919 colonial revival house to provide a more sympathetic setting for the collection. From Joe Kindig III they acquired floorboards from three Pennsylvania buildings; a room-end from a Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, house; and assorted paneling from five rooms of a house of about 1740 to 17 60. With the help of Laurent J. Torno Jr., an architect in Saint Louis, they installed these architectural elements, and the resultant softening and modulating of their principal rooms provides a most pleasing ambience for the collection.

In the living room, the eighteenth-century woodwork was meticulously fitted to provide a chimney wall with a fireplace surround and hearth of King of Prussia marble (Pl. I). The latter was widely used in Philadelphia and environs until the quarry was closed in the third quarter of the nineteenth century; (2) fortunately an uncut piece was located for the Saint Louis fireplace. The colonial furniture in the room is predominately from Philadelphia, including the easy chairs in front of the fireplace, which span the range of the form in Philadelphia from the baroque to the early Federal period. The example to the left of the fireplace has the C-scroll arm terminals, a compass-shaped seat, cabriole front legs with shell-carved knees, and claw-and-ball feet characteristic of early Philadelphia examples of the form. The chair opposite, although retaining the scrolled arms, serpentine wings, and raked back legs of the Chippendale style, exhibits details of the newer Federal style in its tapering legs with stop fluti ng, spade feet, and rectangular stretchers. The chair's history of descent suggests that it was first owned by Colonel Thomas Bull (1744-1837) of Pennsylvania Between the two easy chairs is one of the most ornately carved Philadelphia chairs in the rococo style, its Gothic patterned splat and ruffle-shell carved ears adapted from Plate XIII in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1754. The tilt-top tea table next to the easy chair on the right is another strong statement of the rococo style in Philadelphia (see also Pl. III). On it are some of the collectors' early brass candlesticks. The living room floor is covered with an early eighteenth-century Kuba rug, signaling the owners' interest in antique rugs as the choice of floor covering to complement their furnishings.

The fireplace and overmantel are furnished with objects that reaffirm the collectors' particular affinity for the arts of Pennsylvania (see Pl. I). (3) On the mantel shelf are a silver porringer and cann by Joseph Richardson Sr. (1711-1784) of Philadelphia and a cann (on the right) by Benjamin Burt (1729-1805) of Boston. The flaring top, round-bellied body, and flat furl on the top of the handle of the cann by Richardson place it within the style he sold at mid-century. (4) Richardson also sold hundreds of porringers throughout his career; (5) the example on the mantel shelf is engraved with the monogram "MD." Benjamin Burt, who made the other cann, was one of the major retailing silversmiths in Boston in the late colonial period, and more than fifty canns by him have been recorded. This example is engraved with the inscription "SL/to/EL," and it is tempting to speculate that it was made for the Leonard family of Boston, for whom Burt made at least six pieces of silver. (6) Above the mantel hangs William Penn 's Treaty with the Indians, the engraving by John Hall (1739-1797), published in London in 1775 by John Boydell (1719-1804) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738-1820).

The woman of this couple is an experienced needleworker, a skill that has informed her collecting of historic examples of the art. A grouping of English needlework graces the wall to the left of the fireplace, above a Philadelphia sideboard table with serpentine facade (P1. II). Included in the group are an important stumpwork picture entitled Hope, at the lower left, and a cut- and drawnwork sampler dated 1662. The stumpwork box on the sideboard table displays biblical imagery The sideboard table itself is the mate to one illustrated in William Macpherson Hornor's Blue Book, Philadelphia Furniture, a pioneering publication of American furniture from one regional center. (7) In fact, the comprehensiveness of that study has had almost as much to do with shaping the collectors' interest in Philadelphia furniture as the beauty of the furniture itself. Among the alluring features of Philadelphia cabinetwork seen on this table are the animated skirt gadrooning and the "ribbon and flower" carved edge of the top. T he lively grain of the mahogany used for the top and rails is characteristic of the finest Philadelphia furniture of the period.