Living with antiques: a Houston collection

Magazine Antiques, May, 1996 by David B. Warren

The collection was initiated shortly after the marriage of the collectors some thirty years ago, but it had its genesis in the 1940s when the husband, then at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, heard that one professor never gave less than a B grade to any football player who took his class. He immediately signed up for what turned out to be a famous course on Americana taught by John Marshall Phillips (1905-1953), which was affectionately known to a generation of Yale students as "Pots and Pans." From that course a life-long love of American antiques was born. One day, the young man vowed, he would own an American bonnet-topped high chest of drawers.

When the newly married couple were settling into their first house they agreed that it needed a piece of American antique furniture, although what sort of piece was in dispute. The husband had long wanted a high chest, whereas his wife felt they really needed a sideboard. Having heard that the New York City firm of Israel Sack had just the high chest he yearned for, he and his wife went to see it. They both fell in love with the walnut-veneered Massachusetts Queen Anne example now in their entry hall (Pl. I), but in a most satisfying compromise, they also went home with an extraordinary New York sideboard(2) bearing two labels of William Whitehead (see Pls. IV, VIII). The distinctive design of the leg inlay has been used to attribute to Whitehead a pair of New York Federal card tables (see Pl. VII) and a pembroke table (Pl. VI), all in the collection.(3)

From the outset the couple selected each object for its individual merit rather than attempting to create a comprehensive collection of American furniture. The majority of their acquisitions are case pieces, many of them from New England. The earliest is a William and Mary high chest with burl-walnut veneer, probably from Boston (Pl. XIV). Also from coastal Massachusetts - Boston, Charlestown, or Salem - are a Queen Anne high chest and matching dressing table (Pl. III), which were originally owned and used by the Reverend Ebenezer Gay in Gay Manse, the house he built in 1742 in Suffield, Connecticut.(4) In 1992 the collectors bought an armchair and six matching side chairs, probably from Massachusetts, that had the same Gay family provenance (see Pls. XIV, XV). So, after seventy-seven years of separation, these pieces of Gay furniture were reunited in one house.

One of the most distinctive types of New England furniture is the bombe shape found on case pieces from the Boston and Salem regions. This collection is fortunate to include both a bombe chest of drawers (Pl. V) and a bombe desk-and-bookcase (Pl. XII). While bookcase doors were most commonly faced with mirror glass or wood paneling, this example is unusual for its clear glass and muntins.(5) The distinctive eagle finials still bear traces of their original gilding. Following a lead, Harold Sack of the firm Israel Sack found the desk-and-bookcase in Belgium. When he offered it to the collectors the husband was particularly taken with what he called "the squadron of eagles."

A later alternative to the bombe shape was the serpentine front, which became popular in Massachusetts about 1780. A fair number of case pieces with this feature survive, but almost none of them are embellished with carved ornament. The rare example in this collection (Pl. XIII) is of monumental scale and is noteworthy for its canted corners and sweeping serpentine front, as well as for the remarkably rich carving on the corners, foot brackets, and central pendant on the skirt. While the chest has been known for most of the twentieth century, it was not until the late 1970s that "TN" and "1783" were discovered written on the bottom board. The initials are thought to stand for Thomas Needham Jr., a Salem cabinetmaker, based on their similarity to Needham's signature in script on a bill he submitted to Elias Hasket Derby in 1783.(6)

Four distinguished examples of Newport, Rhode Island, furniture in the collection are a block-and-shell tall-case clock (see Pl. I), an oval drop-leaf dining table with undercut talons on the ball-and-claw feet, a block-and-shell bureau table signed and dated by Edmund Townsend (Pl. X), and a slant-front desk signed and dated by John Goddard (Pl. XI). Distinctive features of the desk include fluted fronts to the document drawers and carved swanlike birds with eyes of inlaid ivory ornamenting the front of the slides that support the writing flap (Pl. XIa). The desk was made for Benjamin Hazard of Newport and descended in his family through six generations before its sale in 1934.(7)

The superb Philadelphia Chippendale armchair in the entry hall attracted the collectors for its boldly sculptural design and masterfully carved ornament (see Pl. I). According to oral tradition, the chair was used by George Washington during his presidential tenure in Philadelphia.

In addition to the Whitehead sideboard, post-Revolutionary furniture in the collection includes twelve square-backed New York chairs, a New York dining table, a pair of Massachusetts card tables, and a Salem chamber table - all in the dining room (see Pl. VIII). In the gallery are a Salem secretary and a small Salem sofa (see Pl. IX). In the library are a chamber table (Pl. XVI) and a tambour desk (Pl. XVII), both in the manner of John and Thomas Seymour of Boston.