A Presidential Case

Philip Zea
Photographs by Penny Leveritt, courtesy of Historic Deerfield

Sideboard, attributed to Thomas Seymour, Boston, MA, c. 1805. Mahogany, rosewood, and white pine with mahogany, rosewood, and birch veneers. H: 46 3/8Ó, W: 70 3/8Ó, D: 26 Ó. Bequest of Mrs. J. Philip Walker. 1985.18

Imagine the conceit of a commanding, urbane piece of case furniture that has always defied daily use! Made solely to impress in its own right and to display the costly ceramics, glass, and silver of its owner, this sideboard is among the many treasures of the George Alfred Cluett Collection of American Furniture and Clocks at Historic Deerfield.
But the sideboard has secrets. The three central drawer facades in the lower tier conceal the only working drawers, used for storing flatware and napkins. The remaining drawer facades are either hinged doors or fixed in place, like the ones in the middle and at the far ends of the upper tier. The incurving doors at either side of the false central drawer provide access to open compartments, and the convex stacked drawer facades at the ends of the lower case are actually single doors. The overly large central opening between the legs further suggests that the sideboard was made en suite with a freestanding bottle case or cellaret, creating the ultimate entertainment center two centuries ago. Such a piece of furniture was a modern form designed for the newest, specialized space in the neoclassical households of Federal America: the dining room [*1].

Thomas Seymour
This sideboard is attributed to the workshop of Boston cabinetmaker Thomas Seymour (1771-1849) and was probably made about 1805. Born in Axminster, Devonshire, in the southwest of England, and trained by his father and senior partner, John (1738-1818), Thomas created a design that displayed his cabinetmaking skills, as well as the prosperity of his unidentified patron. Seymour’s ideas were also shaped by the cosmopolitan arena of refined living that dictated consumerism in the new American republic and by its precedents from Great Britain, Europe, and ultimately the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome. Although the design of this tall sideboard, nearly 50 inches high, is bold and innovative (albeit impractical), its specific precedent is found in Scottish furniture of the period. The Museum of Arts Boston and The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities also own similar Boston examples with New England histories of ownership. The original prototype must have been a Scottish import since the principal English furniture pattern books of the day do not illustrate this design [*2].
The real genius and excitement behind the sideboard, however, arise from Seymour’s mastery of the materials to create visual appeal and exotic quality. Although the interior wood is native eastern white pine, used for its lightweight strength and low cost, the visible species of wood came to Seymour’s Boston workbench from a global economy. The carcass and some of the veneers are mahogany imported from the Caribbean. Most of the light-colored veneers are native birch, which when well chosen and sawn, is a good imitation of satinwood (Chloroxylon swietenia), imported into New England from locations like the northeastern coast of South America. But the most impressive wood of all, forming the legs and running to the height of the lower shelf, is apparently African blackwood (Dalberia melanoxylon), an extremely hard kind of rosewood that is used to turn clarinets. Although rosewood is also indigenous to northern South America, this exotic lumber may have been imported from equatorial east Africa and shaped to its present, cylindrical form by a superb turner with extremely sharp chisels and gouges. The sideboard is finished with its original ivory pulls.
Seymour’s work is identified by several construction features, including the applied rosewood moldings set into grooves cut into the edges of the two shelves; the backboard joined to two medial partitions located behind the inner legs with two rows of three wedged through-tenons; the crisply cut screw pockets along the upper edge of the backboard through which screws help to secure the top; and the drawer construction where, for example, segmental glue blocks (now lost) were used to secure the bottoms to the sides while multiple nails were employed to secure the bottoms to the backs.

Patronage and Provenance
The patronage and provenance of this imposing sideboard are just as impressive and intriguing as its woodwork. George Alfred Cluett (1873-1955), Arrow shirt magnate and groundbreaking collector of American neoclassical furniture, probably purchased the sideboard from antiques dealer Charles Woolsey Lyon (1872-1945) of New York City in April 1924. Lyon had acquired it from none other than Francis P. Garvan (1875-1937), who later gave his vast collection to the Yale University Art Gallery. The sideboard was deemed quite a find when Luke Vincent Lockwood (1872-1951) published it in his pioneering volume on American furniture [*3].
More interesting, however, are the antiquarian notes that accompany the sideboard and the silver plaque initialed “JM” in florid neoclassical script inlaid into the lower shelf. Samuel L. Gouverneur (1799-1867), originally from New York City, apparently presented the sideboard to his uncle (and later father-in-law!), President James Monroe (1758-1831) for his Virginia Piedmont plantation “Oak Hill,” built in the early 1820s [*4]. Gouverneur was the President’s secretary and later became Postmaster General of New York. He sold Oak Hill and its contents in 1854 to Colonel James W. Fairfax, who passed the sideboard to Doctor George Grimby of New York. The original owner of the sideboard, about 1805, is unknown but the furniture’s early travels raise the point that New England furniture was sometimes made for export.
The most satisfying pieces of antique furniture – not to mention other media in the decorative arts – are those that are the most complex: the examples where new designs, exotic materials, clever and efficient craftsmanship, and sophisticated ownership flow from one discovery to the next. This presidential sideboard tells a terrific story that encapsulates most themes in American craftsmanship and consumerism over its two centuries of existence.

Philip Zea is President of Historic Deerfield. The sideboard may be seen in Deerfield’s exhibit Into the Woods, featured in our July 2008 issue.

*References
1. Elisabeth Donaghy Garret, At Home: The American Family, 1750-1870 (New York: Harry Abrams, 1989), p. 78.
2. Robert D. Mussey, Jr., The Furniture Masterworks of John & Thomas Seymour (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 2003), pp. 202-231, esp. 210-213. See also, Sotheby’s auction catalogs #5680, January 28-30, 1988, lot 1900, and #6392, January 31, 1993, lot 1220; Christie’s auction catalog #7398, January 18, 1992, lot 451; and Skinner’s auction catalog #1755, January 12, 1997, lot 147.
3. Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926), 1:372, 375, 377. The sideboard as well as other objects owned by George Alfred Cluett was also published by Charles O. Cornelius in Early American Furniture (New York: The Century Company, 1926).
4. Handwritten notes regarding provenance. Data File 1985.18. Historic Deerfield, Inc.