Moorish fretwork furniture

Magazine Antiques, May, 2005 by Paul Tucker

Twist ornamentation on furniture has been in existence for centuries, but not until the nineteenth century could it be mass produced by machine. These ropelike spiral turnings were often called "barley twist" for an English confection made with barley sugar in a similar shape. (1) Climbing vines, seashells, and animal horns may have been the initial inspiration for this decoration.

In the United States the furniture manufacturing centers in New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, were vigilant in using the latest materials, methods, and styles. In Cincinnati alone half a dozen companies were making parlor tables with spiral or barley twist legs.

The first United States patent for a mechanized spiral turning machine was issued in 1856, (2) and no fewer than fifty more were granted before the end of the nineteenth century. None of these patents went to George Hunzinger (1835-1898) of New York City, whose name is virtually synonymous with the outrageous and fanciful turned furniture made at the time, (3) although in fact he made only a fraction of the work attributed to him. By contrast, two of the most inventive makers of spiral furniture are hardly credited at all. They are Moses Younglove Ransom of Cleveland and Merklen Brothers of New York City, whose distinctive furniture is invariably misattributed to Hunzinger.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Ransom was born in Cambridge, New York, and moved with his family as a young man to Cleveland, where his father operated a lumberyard and planing mill under the name C. S. Ransom and Company. On October 28, 1884, Moses Ransom patented his version of a spiral molding lathe, and his father's company began to include "Interiors" among their offerings. This first patent was for a machine that made very thin barley twist strands, which were then woven into screens resembling woven willow screens. The result was Ransom's Moorish fretwork (see Fig. 2).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Ransom's second patent (see Fig. 1), granted on September 15, 1885, protected his most important ideas on how these turned strands could be assembled into panels to be used in fretwork, grilles, and furniture. In addition to smooth spiral strands, Ransom made twisted strands that resemble an auger bit, but they were not as popular or durable as the smooth spirals.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The intricate geometric patterns of Ransom's screens followed the Moorish design rules set down by Owen Jones in The Grammar of Ornament (1856). These rules provided designers and furniture makers with an artistic link to the exotic East. The nineteenth-century preoccupation with orientalism provided a strong design influence well into the twentieth century.

By far the most extensive example of Ransom's Moorish interior design work is found in the Amelia S. Givin Library in Mount Holly Springs, Pennsylvania. There Ransom's screens were used to make partitions in the library and as door panels in the Moorish style interiors. One of these door panels is illustrated on the contents page of this issue.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Articles in trade journals and newspapers indicate that Ransom was well known as an art furniture maker, although there is very little documentation of his actual furniture work. An advertisement in a trade journal in 1896 identifies Ransom as the maker of a display in the John Wanamaker department store in Philadelphia. (4) The display was partitioned entirely with Moorish fretwork panels. The tapered open twists and interwoven spirals of the fire screen shown in Plate IX also appear on an umbrella stand that was part of the Wanamaker display. (5) Small brass plates on the fretwork panels in the Givin Library, on the fire screen (Pl. IX), and on the folding screen shown in Plate XI all invoke the patent of September 15, 1885. Although it appears that Ransom made Moorish fretwork from 1885 to 1898, his furniture work was apparently limited and concentrated toward the end of his active period. In 1898 the American Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer, announcing the apparent demise of Ransom's furniture making, noted that although his furniture was of the highest quality, the maker unfortunately did not have the patience to run a furniture manufactory. (6)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Ransom had many interests besides woodworking. He was an active organizer of the Ohio Volunteer Army before the Civil War and served as a lieutenant in the First Ohio Artillery during it. After the war he was an officer in the Grand Army of the Republic. He was one of the founders of the Cleveland Yacht Association and organized and participated in many boat races. (7) His third patent, issued on October 16, 1888, was for a method of building boat hulls.

The final chapter in Ransom's colorful career was to prospect for gold in Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of Argentina, where miners bound for the gold rush in California had discovered gold dust. He bought the one-hundred-foot schooner Joseph F. Loubat, fitted it out as a luxurious yacht, and filled the hold with steam engines and gold-dredging equipment of his own design. He left New York with a crew of fifteen in October 1896 and limped home two years later having failed in his quest. It was his financial undoing and marked the end of C. S. Ransom and Company.