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Luxury and Innovation:Furniture Masterworks by John and Thomas Seymour
Through February 15,2004 the Peabody Essex Museum is presenting Luxury and Innovation: FurnitureMasterworks by John and Thomas Seymour. The exhibition is the firstmajor retrospective on this renowned father and son team, and brings togetherthe finest and most visually stunning examples of their work, demonstratingwhy the Federal era is considered one of the most important periods of creativityand craftsmanship in American furniture making history.
Luxury and Innovation takesvisitors into the world of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuryBoston, to showcase the exceptional beauty, refinement, and scope of Johnand Thomas Seymour's work. The exhibition is organized around 70 of theirmost superb pieces of furniture, arranged according to setting: parlor,dining room, and bedroom. Luxury and Innovation will also includecontemporaneous decorative art objects, works on paper, and paintings.
"John and Thomas Seymour, although always admiredfor their talents, are often not credited for their contribution to therefinement of American decorative art," says Robert Mussey, guest curatorof Luxury and Innovation. "The Seymours combined their own superbcabinetmaking and inlay skills with those of other English immigrant carvers,turners and upholsterers, to produce superb interpretations that set thestandard for an entire generation of Boston cabinetmakers. Although theorigins of their craft and styles were English, their brilliance was inexecution of their uniquely American interpretations."
After first settling in Portland, Maine in 1784, the Seymoursrelocated to Boston in 1793, arriving in the thriving city at an opportunemoment in history. The changing social landscape, shifting social roles,new leisure activities, and a growing number of wealthy individuals in Bostonled to larger houses and created demand for higher quality furniture andnew forms, including sewing tables, ladies' desks, sideboards, and lap desks.Increased wealth and foreign trade also secured a consistent supply of theexotic and rare woods and veneers, such as mahogany and rosewood ,prevalentin the Seymours' designs.
Although the exhibition focuses on the genius of the Seymours,Luxury and Innovation also pays tribute to the skilled artisans thatworked in consort with the father and son team. The sophisticated labormodel, employed by the Seymours, was based on a large network of Englishimmigrants with specialized skills. John and Thomas Seymour conceived thedesign, completed the basic casework, and undertook any veneer-work, leavingleft the woodturning, ivory inlaying, carving, upholstering, gilding, anddecorative painting to others. Thomas Wightman, a London-trained wood carver,was one of the Seymours' most talented sub-contractors. Not only was heable to adapt his English design sensibilities to American tastes, but alsohis intricate carvings increased the level of sophistication and surfacevariety of the Seymours' furniture. Examples of Wightman's work can be seenin a card table from Cleopatra's Barge and an ambitious sideboard from theBoston Museum of Fine Arts, possibly made for Elizabeth Derby, the style-setterof Salem.
Stylistically, the Seymours' furniture ranges from Neo-Classicalto Regency, to Classical or Empire.Geometric forms, inspired by Greek andRoman architecture, and sharply contrasting woods and veneers, characterizetheir earlier work. In 1804, Thomas Seymour founded the Boston FurnitureWarehouse, a separate venture from his work with his father. During thistime, Thomas' Regency interpretations used bolder reeding and distinctiveapplied moldings to substitute for inlays, and spectacular crotch mahoganyveneers. He also introduced new forms such as lyre-based tables and scrolledarm supports, as seen in the Winterthur settee included in the exhibition.At the end of his independent career, he introduced the new Classical stylesto Boston with their simplified by elegant carvings, such as those foundon a Grecian card table from the Adams National Historic Site on view inthe exhibition. After Thomas' own business closed, Thomas continued workingas foreman for other cabinetmakers such as James Barker, where he was thoughtto have made a spectacular pair of card tables for America's first pleasureyacht, Cleopatra's Barge, one of which is currently on view at thePeabody Essex Museum His ability to create designs in varying styles demonstrateshis talent for incorporating his own formidable skill with the diverse talentsof other specialist artisans.
Luxury and Innovation willbe presented in the newly transformed Peabody Essex Museum. Designed byrenowned architect, Moshe Safdie, the new museum includes 250,000 squarefeet of new and renovated gallery and public spaces, allowing the PeabodyEssex to showcase for the first time in its 204-year history the entirerange of its collections. Featured prominently in the new museum, is thePeabody Essex's exceptional collection of American Decorative Art. Organizedby themes, the collections demonstrate the craftsmanship and growing sophisticationof American decorative art and design from seventeenth century through thepresent.
The exhibition, related programs, and catalog publicationreceived major support from the Kaufman Americana Foundation, National Endowmentfor the Arts, Croll Foundation, Americana Foundation, Skinner Auctioneersand Appraisers, Inc., Christie's, and the Elizabeth McGraw Foundation.
The American Decorative Art Collections at the PeabodyEssex Museum One of the more complete of its kind, with objects dating fromthe mid-seventeenth century to the present, the American Decorative Artat the Peabody Essex Museum comprises more than 40,000 examples of Americanart and culture. The museum's collection houses an exceptional assortmentof portraits and landscape paintings, recently acquiring a John Singer Sargentportrait. The Peabody Essex also houses major collections of American glass;furniture, sculpture and folk art; textiles and needlework; and a spectacularcollection of American costumes, ranking among the best in the nation.
The exhibition catalog for Furniture Masterworks ofJohn and Thomas Seymour by Robert Mussey is based on 10 years of researchfocused on primary sources from American and English archives. While Britishinfluence was pervasive in American furniture design prior to 1850, thisis the first scholarly study to trace in detail the English origins of animportant American cabinetmaker. Consultants for the exhibition catalogare Wendy Cooper, curator of furniture at Wintherthur Museum, and PeterKenny, Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts at the MetropolitanMuseum of Fine Art. The catalog is published jointly by the Peabody EssexMuseum and the University Press of New England.
The Boston Furniture Symposium
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Peabody Essex Museumhosted The Boston Furniture Symposium: New Research on the Federal Periodfrom November 14 to 16, 2003. The symposium presented important newscholarship in fields of study related to Federal-era furniture.
Papers accepted for presentation at the symposium include:David Conradsen, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, The St.Louis Art Museum: "Émigré CabinetmakerDavid Poignandand the Furniture Hardware Trade in Federal Boston;" Brock Jobe, WinterthurMuseum: "The Upholsterer's Trade in Federal Boston; English UpholsteryFabrics for Seating Furniture;" Lady Elizabeth White, Curator of DecorativeArt, Holburne Museum, Bath, England: "The Influence of the BritishFurniture Pattern Book 1740-1820;" and Damie Stillman, University ofDelaware:"The Seymours and the Neoclassical Tradition in the DevonRegion in England."
Editor's note: RLM readers may enjoy the Museum's thoughtfully-preparedonline exhibition for Luxuryand Innovation: Furniture Masterworks by John and Thomas Seymour.
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutionalsource by visiting the sub-index page for the PeabodyEssex Museum in Resource LibraryMagazine
Search for morearticles and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists for biographical information on historic artists.
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