Beschreibung:

Federal Carved Mahogany and Bird's-eye Maple Veneer Dressing Chest, attributed to Thomas Seymour possibly with John Seymour Boston, c. 1809-14, with gilt and glazed leafage by John Penniman, hardware original, probably original surface, (minor imperfections), ht. 70, case wd. 39, case dp. 20 1/2 in. Dressing tables with integral mirrors above originated as a distinct form in France in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These typically had no drawer, or only one, below, and only rarely a small set of set-back drawers on the top. These designs were adapted in the early Republic in the United States by Thomas Seymour shortly after he opened his Boston Furniture Warehouse along Boston Common were fashionable new houses were being built. The form was made almost exclusively in Boston by his shop. Very few examples can be documented to other makers, only one to another city. Thomas Seymour's innovative adaptations added a small removable case of set-back drawers above to which the mirror bracket assembly is mortised for four or five neat mortises. This upper drawer box slides onto the mid-top from the rear using dovetail-edged cleats affixed to the bottom the drawer unit. These cleats engage in dovetail-edged moldings affixed to the top of the lower case. His versions also added multiple drawers to the main lower case in varying arrangements, most often with two narrow drawers over two full-width drawers as found on the example offered for sale. Seymour drew his designs in part from imported examples and is known to have copied or adapted designs from at least two of Thomas Sheraton's published design books. His dressing chests though represent a wide range of variations resulting from his penchant for tireless experimentation with the basic form. All employ scrolled mirror brackets of particularly elegant form, sometimes ornamented with leafage carved by his favorite collaborator, London-trained immigrant carver Thomas Wightman. Incorporation of round or oval mirrors like the present example are the rarest of the variations found today. By 1809, decorative painter and gilder John Penniman, Boston's finest decorative painter, had moved into and was first taxed for a leased space in Seymour's Warehouse on Common Street. In that and the next few years, Seymour hired Penniman to add his considerable talents and amplify his designs. Their combined skills on an ambitious lyre-base pier table resulted in probably Boston's greatest example of Federal-era painted and decorated furniture.4 Penniman's recently discovered signature on the underside of the table top firmly links the two men. He conveniently also noted the year "1809" and "Boston." The best-known example of their collaboration is a demi-lune commode chest Seymour made for Salem's style-maven Elizabeth Derby, where Penniman added a gorgeous panel on the top depicting seashells and seaweed. Penniman's distinctive gilt leafage, ebonized striping and faux-shadowing substitute on scrolled brackets of the present example for Wightman's carved versions. His sure, skilled hand is clearly recognizable in the shapes of the graduated gilt leaves and the use of three colors of umber and sienna colored glazes to pick out the details and provide modeling. Seymour's work on the chest reflects his firm grasp of the classical architectural basis of French and English neoclassical furniture designs of this period. Here for example, a course of veneer crossbanding and a triple-bead molding surrounds and is let into the lower case. These carry across the front, including the face of the sliding bag-frame, around identical beaded rings turned in the front legs, and back along the case sides. His elegant melding here of oval and rectangular masses demonstrates his grasp of geometry, the other fundamental design foundation of neoclassical furniture. Here, as in Elizabeth Derby's related chest, the rounded mirror is visually supported by, and united to, a veneer panel which unites th