Kentucky Sideboard

Earlier this year, The Speed Museum purchased an extraordinary Kentucky-made sideboard. Its complex profile, richly figured veneers, precise inlays, and the exceptional quality of its craftsmanship place it among the most ambitious Kentucky sideboards to have survived from the early nineteenth century. It was made between about 1800 and 1815, probably in Lexington or its surrounding area.

It is not known who originally owned the sideboard. The previous owner, Robert Brewer, acquired it from Eleanor Hume Offutt, one of the most important early dealers of Kentucky antiques; she had opened Wilderness Trail Antiques in Frankfort in the late 1920s. He purchased the sideboard in 1951at the urging of his mother, Juliet Goddard Brewer, an influential early collector of Kentucky antiques and an outspoken advocate for preserving Kentucky’s architectural heritage.

Sideboards have symbolized status throughout their history. In the Middle Ages, wealthy diners might sit to eat at a “side-board”, a type of table set along the side of a room. By the late seventeenth century, the “side-board” had evolved into a service piece, used to hold wine bottles, silver, dishes of food, and other items. The sideboard as we recognize it today, offering a combination of storage and display, developed in the eighteenth century. Within its drawers and compartments, owners stored textiles, silverwares, liquor, candles, and similar domestic goods until they were needed for use. Early nineteenth-century Kentucky: estate inventories and other documentary sources show that sideboards were often among the most expensive pieces of furniture one could own.

Inlay had become the preferred decorative treatment for fashionable American furniture in the late eighteenth century. The cost of inlaid furniture was considerably higher than for plain examples, so most furniture made in Kentucky in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries would have had little, if any, of the inlaid decoration affordable only for those who had the economic means to pay beyond the utility of an object. In Kentucky, regional differences in inlay styles and patterns evolved and today frequently assist in the identification of local schools of early Kentucky cabinetmaking. For example, though the form and inlay of this sideboard were influenced by Baltimore cabinetmaking practices, the decoration on its legs exhibits a distinctive bellflower and line pattern. Similar decoration has only been found on a few other Kentucky pieces, all of which most likely came from the same maker or shop. To date, the group includes The Speed’s sideboard, a pair of dining table ends, and possibly a blockfront card table.

Fortunately, Robert and Kathy Brewer treated this sideboard with great care for over sixty years. As a result, the sideboard remains relatively undisturbed. Preserving, analyzing, and understanding its layers of history became a team effort between furniture conservators, an analytical laboratory, and The Speed’s curators. Several months of conservation treatment and technical analysis included microscopic examinations of wood samples as well as x-ray fluorescence spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy to analyze the compositions of different materials. Some of the discoveries?

• The sideboard retains an old finish history comprised of shellac coatings. Shellac is made by dissolving in alcohol the resins secreted by particular types of insects, including the so-called lac beetle.
• The wood used to make the inlay along the bottom edge of the sideboard is most likely eastern hophornbeam, a hard, heavy wood that grows in Kentucky but rarely seems to have been used by early Kentucky cabinetmakers.
• Three of the “bone” shields around the keyholes are twentieth-century replacements made from celluloid, an early type of plastic.

During conservation, one of the celluloid shields was replaced with a new one made of bone; two celluloid examples still remain.

Tall Case Clocks

KOAR 2004.1.3

Something about the faces of tall case clocks, with moons serenely waxing and waning above world maps or ships sailing out to sea under windy clouds aloft, is as endlessly fascinating as the steady
tick-tock and chimes on the quarter-hours are comforting.
If you are fortunate enough to have childhood memories of waiting while the weights were adjusted and the correct time checked against an elder relative’s pocket watch, or even a parent’s chronographic wristwatch, perhaps this blog is for you.

The form of the tall case clock, commonly known today as a “grandfather’s clock”, developed in response to technological advances in clock making during the late seventeenth century. Use of pendulums had improved accuracy in time keeping, but their wide arcs made a clock with a long pendulum somewhat impractical since it could not be fitted easily inside a case.

The invention of the anchor escapement, which used an anchor-shaped mechanism having prongs (called pallets) on the ends of its arms to alternately catch and release a vertical wheel with pointed teeth on it, allowed power supplied to the wheel by weights (or a spring) to be released in small regular bursts. This reduced a long pendulum’s swing to a much shorter arc that could fit inside a narrow case; less oscillation and lower air drag also greatly improved accuracy and reduced the power needed to keep the pendulum swinging and the wear on the clock’s movement. Most tall case clocks had a “seconds pendulum” about 39 inches long with a swing that lasted one second, hence its name.

KOAR 2008.1.11

A tall case was needed so that there would be enough space for the weights to drop. In America, springs had to be imported until about 1835-40 and were very expensive, so weights were typically used. (When the capability to manufacture springs in this country developed, tall case clocks quickly fell out of favor since shelf clocks were much cheaper to produce; it was not until the height of the Victorian era, after about 1870-1880, that big fancy hall clocks, usually with glass in the trunk door and beautiful brass weights and pendulums, became popular again.) Because the weights that provided power to the pendulum were heavy, the weight of the clock mechanism was better supported by a floor-standing pedestal rather than hanging it on a wall.

The tall case clock cabinet is made up of three sections. The top, called the “hood” or “bonnet”, contains the clock works and its face. The middle, called the “trunk” or “waist”, contains the pendulum and weights. The bottom section is the “base” and its height brings the clock face up to eye level. The case of the clock shown at upper left was made by William Lowry, a cabinetmaker in Frankfort, Kentucky, around 1805-1810.

The inner works of many tall case clocks of the early 1800s include imported English-made components, which reached Kentucky by way of trade with major urban centers such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. The bell of the clock shown at right bears the mark of George Ainsworth, a Lancashire maker of clock parts and assembled clock works. The clock’s works were likely assembled by Thomas McMurray, a Lexington clock and watch maker who had worked previously in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Judging by his inscription on the clock’s seat board, McMurray apparently operated as Asa Blanchard’s subcontractor. Blanchard, well known as one of Kentucky’s earliest silversmiths, also advertised his Lexington shop’s ability to perform watch and clock work. It is Blanchard’s own signature that is on the back of this clock’s dial. (Only two other clocks bearing Blanchard’s signature are known; one is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.) However, the Kentucky cabinetmaker who made this magnificent case, alas, remains anonymous.

Great Kentucky Antiques Given to Speed Art Museum

Even as the Speed Art Museum’s exhibition, Quilts from Kentucky and Beyond: The Bingham-Miller Family Collection was opening back in June (it closes on September 18), I was already working on the next big thing to hit the Speed:

Silhouette of Cassius Clay by William Henry Brown, 1845

The arrival of almost 120 pieces of nineteenth-century Kentucky furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles, paintings, and works on paper. This extraordinary trove of great Kentucky art was given to the Speed by Bob and Norma Noe. The Noes, both Kentucky natives, assembled the collection over the course of thirty years. Their generous gift makes the Speed’s Kentucky collection the best in the country.

Mason-Fleming-Lewis County, Kentucky, chest of drawers, 1795-1810

Over sixty highlights from the collection are now on view in the exhibition, Kentucky Antiques from the Noe Collection: A Gift to the Commonwealth. If you want to hear Bob Noe talk about his experiences as a collector, check out this and this.

To learn more about the Noes’ gift, read the whole press release.

Treasures from the Kentucky Historical Society

The Kentucky Online Arts Resource, a project of the Speed Art Museum, is pleased to add the Kentucky Historical Society to the site’s growing list of museum partners!

KOAR now features several highlights from Kentucky Historical Society’s exhibition, Great Revivals: Kentucky Decorative Arts Treasures. Curated by Estill Curtis Pennington, the exhibition brings many of KHS’s best pieces together in a single installation at the Old State Capitol in Frankfort.

Among my favorites: a terrific example of “art-carved” furniture with carved decoration by Kate Perry Mosher of Covington, Kentucky (located just across the river from Cincinnati). I first saw this cabinet several years ago in one of KHS’s storage areas and was blown away the quality of Mosher’s work. Her carvings of herons, Kentucky cane plants, and other plant forms reflect great skill and a great eye for design.

Cabinet with carving by Kate Mosher, 1892

Mosher learned from a master: Cincinnati’s Benn Pitman, the godfather of Cincinnati’s late nineteenth-century art-carved furniture movement. Pitman established a wood carving program at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1873. Like Mosher, many students of art carving were women. She ranked among the best, exhibiting her work at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Documented Kentucky Furniture Now Available

Click on over to the Kentucky Online Arts Resource (KOAR) and you’ll find some great new additions, notably sixteen pieces of Kentucky furniture from one of the state’s best private collections. You can see a few highlights on KOAR’s Recent Additions page.

Many of the pieces can be tied to particular locales, owners, and even makers. In some cases, the connection comes through a piece’s provenance. One of my favorites: an elegant gaming table that descended in the Brown family of Frankfort.

Brown Family Gaming Table, 1800-1810

In other cases, the owners’ passion for research helps us reconnect the furniture to its original context. An imposing tall clock, made as early as the late eighteenth century (a fairly rare thing with surviving Kentucky furniture), can be tied to William Calk, an early settler, thanks to the collectors’ research. Calk’s 1775 account of his journey from Prince William County, Virginia to Kentucky makes for interesting reading.

Calk Family Tall Clock, 1790-1810

Along with furniture, new additions from the same collection include several examples of decorated stoneware.

New Installations of Kentucky Art and Antiques

I’ve recently completed two installations at The Speed Art Museum that feature great Kentucky art.

For the exhibition Pursuing the Masterpiece, I’ve installed the fantastic Kentucky sugar desk I discussed previously. Using maps, texts, and images, the desk is placed in both its historic and antiquarian contexts. I also produced a video featuring the husband-and-wife collectors who gave the desk to the Speed. They are a remarkable pair, having spent 40 years building one of the state’s finest collections of early Kentucky antiques and art. Here’s a short clip of the husband, Bob Noe, describing the desk:

I also recently installed Modern in the Making: Design 1900-2000, which features over 50 pieces from the Speed’s collection.

Hadley Pottery bowl, 1956

Kentucky is represented by several objects, including three pieces designed by Mary Alice Hadley (1911-1965) for Louisville’s Hadley Pottery.

I’ve also included a beautiful set of turned rosewood bowls made by Kentucky’s Rude Osolnik (1915-2001), one of the United States’ great craft artisans.

Salad set, about 1950 by Rude Osolnik

Finally, Kentucky’s rich ceramic tradition is respresented by a wonderful Bybee Pottery face pitcher made in Bybee, Kentucky.

Bybee Pottery pitcher and mugs, about 1940

Visiting Kentucky, 1807-1809

Period accounts of Kentucky (or anywhere else) can’t always be taken at face value. Often their authors had ulterior motives. John Filson’s famous The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucke (1784) was, shall we say, rather optimistic in its descriptions. If Filson could get settlers to the state, he could make money from his land investments.

Fortunately, Fortescue Cuming’s Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country (1810) offers a more objective view. His very readable travel journal traces his roundabout trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, down the Ohio River, back to Pittsburgh, back down the Ohio, and on to the Mississippi.

For those interested in Kentucky life during the early nineteenth century, it makes for great reading. There’s information, too, for those interested in Kentucky antiques. Lately, I’ve been working on a research project involving the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Why? The state pen’s workshops produced chairs for many decades. The pen also produced stone slabs, some of which may have been used atop furniture.

Cuming provides a detailed description of the Kentucky pen as it existed in 1807. Along with a description of the facility, he notes the presence of “twenty-four miserable wretches” imprisoned there…and also gives a list of the work they did as “nailors, coopers, chair makers, turners, and stone cutters, the latter of whom cut and polish marble slabs of all sizes…”

Sweet Desk

There’s nothing sweeter in Kentucky furniture than sugar furniture–that is, pieces like sugar chests, sugar boxes, and, yes, even sugar desks. Made in the state between the 1790s and the early 1850s, sugar furniture has enticed collectors for decades. Long-time collectors Bob and Norma Noe recently gave The Speed Art Museum a magnificent sugar desk made between 1810 and 1840, surely in the north-central part of the state (more on its geographic origins below).

Mason-Fleming-Nicholas County sugar desk, The Speed Art Museum, photo by Bill Roughen

Though small in size (it measures 31-5/8 h. x 29-1/4 w. x 13-7/8 in. d.), the desk’s visual presence is huge. A grid of figured veneers decorates its facade, an unusual feature among surviving Kentucky pieces. An inlaid star on the skirt below adds to its elegance.

The bulbous profile of the skirt along with the desk’s spidery, curved legs associate it with a group of furniture made in the Mason-Fleming-Nicholas County area. Mason County sits along the Ohio River and served as a major entry point for goods and migrants headed into the central Bluegrass region and its capital, Lexington.

Sugar desk showing interior, photo by Bill Roughen

Marianne Ramsey and Diane Wachs, in their landmark study, The Tuttle Muddle (2000), associate the furniture group with the cabinetmakers Gerrard Calvert, Peter Tuttle, and John Foxworthy. The three men, ultimately related through marriage, came to Kentucky from Prince William County, Virginia. Like so many others, they probably arrived via the Ohio.

Sugar also came to Kentucky off of the Ohio, arriving from the Caribbean and Louisiana via New Orleans. It was a costly commodity in early nineteenth-century Kentucky. Specialized, equally expensive pieces of furniture like this desk provided secure storage for the sugar.

The desk also reinforced sugar’s value as a status symbol. By itself, refined sugar was visually mundane–it usually was sold in cones wrapped in blue paper. Placing the sugar in a fine piece of furniture, though, proclaimed its importance. It also added a ritual dimension when the sugar was used: it had to be removed from its princely storage; bits were cut off and used to sweeten the social consumption of tea, coffee, and other drinks; and then the sugar disappeared again into the desk.

To see more Kentucky sugar furniture and related objects, visit the Kentucky Online Arts Resource and use the search term, “sugar.”