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Friday, May 24, 2013

By CK Wolfson
Published: April 2, 2009

"Harbor & Home, Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850" by Brock Jobe, Gary R. Sullivan, and Jack O'Brien. University Press of New England, 2009, 435 pages, $75.

"Harbor & Home, Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850," is an impressively large and glossy book with more than 100 color plates of the furniture and clocks of the region and period. It is not, however, to be confused with similar looking "coffee table books," books displayed for their decorative appeal.

This is a scholarly volume of meticulously researched examples of furniture as indicators of regionalism and the influences that shaped it, style as a cultural expression, and the evolution of craft shops, most specifically the rural handcraft tradition of Samuel Wing of Sandwich and the mechanized process of furniture factories in the New Bedford area. It is a history lesson told in tables and chairs.

The period covered in the book, a catalogue of the current exhibit at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate in Delaware's Brandywine Valley, is noted for the changes that occurred in the population and economy of an area that stretches from just south of Boston to Providence, east to the tip of Cape Cod, including Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Imported exotic woods brought in on local ships were used by area craftsmen to make furniture and clocks that were then shipped to various markets.

The chapters are written with the enthusiasm and drama of a treasure hunt, discoveries made by peering into the nooks and crannies of private and institutional collections, word-of-mouth clues followed up with scholarly zeal.

Possibly the finest example of an 18th-century Boston Queen Anne dressing table was being stored in a Martha's Vineyard barn until a postmistress hinted at its existence.

A cane-bottom chair remained boarded up behind a wall in a Norwell house, before it was discovered during renovations in 1999.

The history of a particular banister-back armchair is linked to John Allen (1682-1767), "one of the leading power brokers on Martha's Vineyard." The chapter continues: "As a prominent merchant, major landholder, and justice and high sheriff for Dukes County, he influenced almost every aspect of island life."

Another chapter features a scrimshaw dressing box, attributed to the Vineyard's Captain Richard G. Luce:

"One of the most successful whaling captains at a time when the region was considered to be the whaling capital of the world, Captain Luce reportedly never lost a man or ship over the course of thirty years."

In a description of a mahogany slant-lid desk attributed to the Allen family in Chilmark, family lineage is chronicled, and the structural aspects of the design explained, along with the availability of exotic wood from South America that was shipped to the Vineyard.

"Harbor & Home" is evidence of the exuberance and expertise of its three authors: Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts for Winterhur's Program in American Material Culture and the University of Delaware; Gary R. Sullivan, president of Gary R. Sullivan Antiques, Inc., an expert on Early American clocks, and Jack O'Brien, research assistant for the Southeastern Massachusetts Furniture Project.

Mr. Jobe's Preface, which sets the tone of the book, describes "a range of wonderful moments of discovery, not to mention a few of total exhaustion and deep despair."

Of an early meeting with Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Jobe writes: "Gary, an avid Boston Red Sox fan, had passed up the opportunity to watch the Red Sox play in St. Louis in the historic 2004 World Series in favor of attending my lecture!"

Readers get a sense of the enthusiasm of the collaborators and the fellowship that existed among them, and their passion for the project.

Table by table, chest by chair, "Harbor & Home," is surprisingly engrossing reading.