John Townsend: Cabinetmaker

An exhibition at the metropolitan museum of art

By Randall Decoteau

John Townsend, an 18th century cabinetmaker from Newport, Rhode Island, makes an excellent subject for an
exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has brought together approximately 40 pieces by him to display in this show along with 20 produced by his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. These pieces have been taken from the Metropolitan’s collection, from Winterthur Museum, and from 15 public collections and 18
private lenders.
In addition to his extraordinary craftsmanship, what makes Townsend so important and so illuminating is that in a time when most makers were modest and few labeled their work, he signed and dated more of his pieces than any other 18th century American craftsman. His signatures have enabled scholars to document his stylistic evolution with certainty. “This exhibition is about one maker – John Townsend,” commented Morrison Heckscher, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the American Wing and curator of this exhibition. “The reason it’s about him is not only because he was a consummate craftsman, but because he was meticulous and because he was compulsive.”

The Townsend family of Newport
In 1725, brothers Christopher and Job Townsend each bought lots in Eastern Point, a part of Newport that was being developed at the time. They did well as housewrights and cabinetmakers and established the family name in separate workshops attached to their homes. Job had four children: Edmund, Thomas, and two daughters who married into the Goddard family. Christopher raised John Townsend in a house that today is one of the best-preserved dwellings in Newport. He came out of the tradition of his father, who was a meticulous craftsman. In his most important piece, which we know today as the Appleton family desk and bookcase, he was proud enough to pencil his name on the whole bottom of one of the drawers.
We know little of their lives except for what they left behind, which forms an unparalleled record that is well documented in this exhibition.
From the very first gallery with its heavy Georgian coloration, we know that Townsend is a very important craftsman with a monumental talent. Before us are a spectacular Newport highboy and stunning block and shell desk bookcase accompanied by contemporary views and early maps of the city.
The exhibition is pretty straightforward and generally follows a documented chronology. We can see from the earliest examples that Newport initially looked to Boston for inspiration. But these were Quakers who were looking at high style. “They knew they could do better, and it is fascinating to see how they tweaked designs and came up with the most beautiful furniture in America,” mused Heckscher.

A mature craftsman at 22
The next gallery offers a symphony of carving on cabriole legs, claw and ball feet, leaf-carved knees, and on the scrolled pediments of high chests. We know that John Townsend was already a mature craftsman by 1756, when he was just 22, because here we can see early pieces that are signed and dated.
During the second half of the 18th century, Newport became the leading center of American furniture making, with members of the Townsend and Goddard families dominating the trade. During this period, the work of John Townsend set a standard in workmanship and design that was seldom matched in American cabinetmaking. When seen next to the work of his contemporaries, it is clear that his role in the history of furniture making was pivotal. In this room can be seen Townsend’s earliest documented work, a drop-leaf dining table signed and dated 1756, a scroll-pedimented highboy from 1759, and an exceptional purple mahogany card table from 1762.

Block and shell form
The next gallery is about Newport’s iconic signature block front with shell furniture. “My guess is that John Townsend was intimately involved with the creation of the block and shell form,” suggests Heckscher. The fronts of these pieces are divided into three sections, with a concave central element flanked by convex ones. All of Townsend’s signed pieces are in this style.
This was a form that was produced for a long period of time, even after it had become a bit old fashioned. It is interesting that what we think of as mid-Georgian was made well into the post-Revolutionary period with little change. One wall of this gallery displays six pieces in this form signed and dated between 1760 and 1793. On view here is a superb fall-front desk featuring his largest and most magnificent shells from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, US Department of State.

Neoclassical transition
The next gallery offers transition to late neoclassic colors to underscore the change in style to stop-fluted leg furniture. Almost all of these pieces are signed as well. Here can be seen Pembroke tables, card tables, tea tables, a stand, and more. Each is made with machine-like precision, just as if done in a modern milling machine, but each of course carved completely by hand. “This is the real character of his work, very geometric and very simple, explains Mr. Heckscher. “You only begin to realize the character of this man when you look at the labor intensive, compulsive perfection of his craftsmanship.”
A fourth gallery offers tables with straight tapered legs, ornamented only with contrasting inlays. Here are examples of John Townsend’s interpretation of the newest in neoclassical taste. By this time, New York had completely eclipsed Boston as tastemakers, and Townsend was looking there for his inspiration. He was trying to adapt his methods to the mass-production techniques that were emerging during this period. His style is simpler and his lines are spare, yet each piece is still meticulously made.
Townsend focused particularly on the banquet table during this time. The concept of a separate room for dining was a new idea, and the banquet table as a form came into its own in the 1790s. A 1796 ten-legged example dominates the center of this gallery along with a matching card table. The latest examples in the show are a set of chairs produced in about 1800 that are based on a New York model. Throughout these galleries, it is interesting to survey the way Townsend was adapting and changing.

Look and compare
The last two galleries help the visitor to look and compare the work of John Townsend with that of his contemporaries. In the first of them, one immediately encounters two chests placed upside-down: one by Townsend and the other by a contemporary. Here you can see distinctive blocking, and marginally different construction techniques used. The same exercise can be undertaken when examining the two tables that are also shown upside-down. The mortise and tenon brackets used in the Townsend piece were very labor intensive compared to the brackets on the other table. For a person interested in woodworking, these two pairs give a concise statement of how these pieces were made. Just beyond are shell-carved interior doors and drawers made by Job Townsend, Christopher Townsend, John Goddard, and John Townsend. One rarely has the opportunity to compare and really look simultaneously at the work of these four side-by-side.

Connoisseurship galleries
The final gallery is for connoisseurship. In this room, one of each of John Townsend’s works stand next to one of his contemporaries for comparison. Here the famous Edmund Townsend kneehole dressing table, the only labeled example by him, is side by side with a bureau table by John Townsend. Similarly a highlight in this gallery is the important 1772 mahogany chest on chest newly acquired by the Metropolitan, the only known labeled work by John Townsend’s cousin Thomas Townsend, which descended in the Gardiner family of eastern Long Island.
Curator Morrison Heckscher reminds us that when you begin to look at the way one of Townsend’s labeled pieces is constructed, you realize that every element of the interior is treated with the same attention to detail and finish as the exterior. “I know of no parallel,” he says. “He was a compulsive perfectionist. He had a sharp and angular aesthetic.”

Leading citizens of their community
These were craftsmen. At the end of their day, you look at their houses, and it is clear that they were highly regarded people, leading citizens in their community. This was an era of social equality, a golden age for craftsmen, not only because of the quality of their work, but also because of their place in the scheme of things.
“John Townsend signed and dated everything,” Heckscher said. “He had a sense of his own history. He was not only passionate about what he was doing, but he loved his craft. To put it in perspective, look at this furniture and compare it to the paintings of the period, which were highly derivative. This is the most American and the most creative of the arts in this country in the 18th century.”
The exhibition is on for the whole summer, a marvelous opportunity for those who love American furniture, but what will really last is the catalogue published to accompany the exhibition, which illustrates for posterity every signed piece by John Townsend along with detailed sections about each member of the family.

John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, May 6-September 25, 2005, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028, www.metmuseum.org, Catalogue $75 Hardcover available at the Museum Shop.