"With the richest ornaments just imported from France": ornamental hardware on Boston, New York, and Philadelphia furniture, 1800-1840
Date
1993
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Metalwork on early 19th-century American neoclassical furniture is often attributed to France. Little evidence exists to support or contradict most of these attributions. Few documents survive regarding hardware manufacturers in France, England, and America. Therefore, the study of furniture mounts must be devoted to gathering widely scattered documentary and material resources. Cabinetmakers' account books, inventories, and advertisements often contain references to the importation, purchase, and sale of furniture hardware. Nineteenth-century English metalwork pattern books survive in many museum collections and provide one of the largest sources of evidence about the Birmingham hardware trade. The metalwork objects are themselves documents; physical evidence such as markings and manufacturing techniques provide clues to their origins. A hardware collection from the workshop of Boston cabinetmaker Henry Kellam Hancock (1788-1854) survives intact with its original packaging. The unique provenance of this collection supplies a rare opportunity to study metalwork that was never mounted on furniture. Research comparing Hancock's collection and other hardware on documented American furniture with trade catalogues provides case studies to inform future analyses of furniture hardware. Although hardware functions as a small part of furniture's larger whole, the metal objects are not merely a sideline. They carry great potential for social, cultural, and economic interpretation and can provide new insight into issues concerning other areas of 19th-century study, including the Industrial Revolution, expressions of taste, cultural exchange, and international trade networks.
Description
Pages 220-217 lacking from PDF.