Federal Mahogany Serpentine-Front Chest of Drawers

Object Details

Object Essay

On July 14, 1798, Langley Boardman of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, informed “his friends & the public that he carries on the Cabinet Makers’ BUSINESS, at his shop in Ladd Street, in all its various branches, with neatness, faithfulness and punctuality.”^{1_{Oracle of the Day (Portsmouth, New Hampshire), July 14, 1798.}} Then twenty-four years old, Boardman had recently arrived from coastal Massachusetts and introduced an array of fashionable neoclassical furniture based on Salem designs. His most influential product, to judge from surviving examples, was a serpentine chest featuring four drawers of equal height, figured mahogany veneers, canted front corners, and C-shaped bracket feet with a slight cusp along the inner edge. Often string inlay outlined the drawers and feet and, on the most elaborate examples, quarter fans filled the corners of the drawers. The form achieved considerable popularity and was soon emulated by other craftsmen. Surviving chests of this pattern descended in the Wendell, Langdon, Rundlet, and Parrott families of Portsmouth and today remain in historic houses there.^{2_{The Wendell chest is now owned by Strawbery Banke; the Langdon and Rundlet chests are in the collections of Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; the Parrott chest is at the Moffatt-Ladd House, a property operated by the National Society of the Colonial Dames in America. The Rundlet chest is the best documented and most elaborate in the group. James Rundlet, a Portsmouth merchant, recorded in his ledger the purchase of the chest from Boardman on May 6, 1802 (see Plain and Elegant, 24–25).}} Other examples were exported to the South and apparently served as models for local cabinetwork in Charleston, South Carolina.^{3_{Ward 1988, no. 71.}}

Although this stylish chest lacks a history, it so closely corresponds in design, construction, and woods to documented Portsmouth versions of the form that an attribution to the community is warranted. Like many comparable chests, it features a full dustboard separating the two middle drawers (and shallow dividers between the others), drawer fronts composed of figured veneer glued to laminated strips of pine, a vertical column of dovetails binding each rear bracket foot to a triangular rear element, and a paneled back. The stiles of the back are spruce, a wood rarely used in American furniture outside of the Portsmouth area.^{4_{A documented Portsmouth toilet table with spruce legs is owned by Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (see Jobe and Kaye, no. 71).}}

Except for its refinished surface and replaced hardware, this chest remains in pristine condition and serves as an excellent guide to the quality of furnituremaking in Portsmouth during the Federal era. It illustrates the influence of Langley Boardman but differs slightly from his documented chests and probably represents the work of a talented competitor.^{5_{The Boardman chest, acquired by James Rundlet in 1802, has horizontal backboards rather than a paneled back (see n. 2).}}

Brock Jobe

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.