AA LEAD: TO PLEASE ANY TASTE: LITCHFIELD COUNTY FURNITURE & FURNITURE MAKERS, 1780-1830

By Laura Beach

LITCHFIELD, CONN. — In 1969, two years after John T. Kirk’s influential presentation “Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., the Litchfield Historical Society documented and displayed furniture made in Connecticut’s northern and westernmost county.

The Litchfield Historical Society recently revisited the project, exploring the topic through a contemporary lens and applying the latest research techniques and interpretive methods. The result is a much expanded and more nuanced view of furniture making in the region before the Industrial Revolution.

Now something of a collector’s item, Litchfield County Furniture: 1730–1850 listed 49 cabinetmakers, Elijah Booth of Woodbury and Silas E. Cheney of Litchfield prominent among them. It also highlighted the distinctive diagonal braces that some Litchfield cabinetmakers used to reinforce the underside of the bases of case pieces.

While some of the original findings still stand, it was clear that the research was dated, said Catherine Keene Fields. The historical society’s director sought funding from the Connecticut Humanities Council and elsewhere to implement the new study. The resulting exhibition, “To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture & Furniture Makers, 1780–1830,” continues at the Litchfield Historical Society through November 30.

Litchfield antiques dealers Peter and Jeffrey Tillou underwrote the cost of the companion catalog, To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture & Furniture Makers, 1780–1830 by Edward S. Cooke Jr, Ann Y. Smith and Derin Bray. This useful new reference identifies 700 Litchfield County joiners, a list compiled by Bray, who in a separate chapter writes in more detail about the country’s best known craftsmen and their milieu. An essay by Smith, “Furniture Characteristics,” convincingly relates design and construction details to specific makers and towns.

Ingeniously, the volume comes with a searchable compact disk containing 200 of the pieces that Smith tracked down, photographed and documented to Litchfield County. The CD, which includes catalog information and closeup photos of construction details for each object, is a work in progress and will be updated from year to year.

“There was a time when anything from northwest Connecticut was thought to be from Woodbury,” said Smith, who spent 25 years gathering material on the region’s furniture. The former curator of the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn., requested that Edward Cooke, the Charles F. Montgomery professor of American decorative arts at Yale University and author of Fiddlebacks and Crooked-backs: Elijah Booth and Other Joiners in Newtown and Woodbury 1750–1820 (Mattatuck Historical Society, 1982), guide the project.

A Winterthur graduate now with Northeast Auctions, Bray joined the team in 2007 as a researcher after working with Brock Jobe on the Southeastern Massachusetts Furniture Project. Bray made an exhaustive search of probate and court records and tax lists for references to Litchfield furniture and furniture makers, something that had never been done before.

“To Please Any Taste” examines a fleeting 50 years after the Revolutionary War when Litchfield County experienced a boom in population and wealth.

“The northwest region was a teeming dynamic site of production and consumption,” writes Cooke, who sought to reconstruct the economies of the region by looking at makers, period terminology, patterns in popularity of certain forms and evidence of social stratification within towns or between towns.

Litchfield’s towns were a diverse lot, their identities shaped by the distinct heritages and occupations of their citizens. Woodbury was agricultural; New Milford, mercantile; the iron industry thrived in Kent, Canaan and Sharon; and the town of Litchfield was a center for politics and education.

As designed by Julie Frey, Litchfield Historical Society’s curator of collections, the concisely edited installation packs a wealth of information into four galleries. Furniture is grouped by three periods: early, middle and late. Some objects are accompanied by flip cards, providing supplemental information and allowing visitors to compare objects on view with others in the survey.

“We wanted the furniture to be seen in a social context, not as art,” said Frey, who worked with Sue Connell, a historic paints expert, and Thistle Hill Weavers to create the evocative displays.

At the heart of the show are 30 pieces of furniture culled from more than a dozen public and private collections, including those of Yale, Winterthur, the Connecticut Historical Society and Hartford Steam Boiler. Smith traveled as far as Vermont and Virginia in search of the objects, some on public view for the first time in 30 years.

“To Please Any Taste” opens with a delicately scaled wing chair fitted with a pot from Arah Phelps’ inn in North Colebrook, Conn. Now at Winterthur, the chair, auctioned by Skinner in 2004, retains its original foundation materials and linen covering.

With its short bulbous legs, C-scrolls incised on the inside of its knees and feet that are a cross between brushes and toes, a circa 1760 four-drawer cherry chest of drawers from the Hartford Steam Boiler collection is a classic example of Stratford-influenced Woodbury design, writes Smith. Squared knees and deep shells carved into a double layer drawer front are other Woodbury characteristics.

Displayed in the round so that the construction of its elaborately carved interior may be better understood, a glazed, double-door, paneled corner cupboard from the home of Asa Curtiss, one of Woodbury’s founders, relates to other corner cupboards made in Woodbury and Washington around 1780. The grapevine motif on the concave shell of its interior relates to decorative carving in Bethlehem, Morris and Litchfield.

Found in Vermont 20 years ago, a high chest of drawers from Watertown is built to look as if it has steps for displaying china. In fact, its crenelated pediment is a false front. The piece has squared knees and toed feet and, like other step tops from the Woodbury area, thick lobed shells surrounded by punch-carved half-circles.

Smith tracked down 20 pieces of furniture with cross-braced construction, a time-saving device used in Litchfield. A Chippendale slant front desk from the collection of the Litchfield Historical Society offers a good example of how the bracing system worked. John LaGatutta of Northwest Corner Woodworks in Torrington, Conn., created a model, also on view, that further illustrates the ingenious construction technique.

In his exhaustive research, Bray discovered that Reuben Beman, thought to have made his career in Kent, actually moved from New London to Kent to New Marlborough, Mass., just over the Connecticut border, by 1764. Overturning earlier attributions, the scholars now attribute a chest-on-chest from Winterthur’s collection and a closely related example in a private collection to the craftsman’s son, Reuben Beman Jr (1772–1814).

Beman Sr most likely trained his son and a neighbor, Bates How (1776–1801), who is represented in the show by two signed pieces — a chest of drawers lent by Yale and a chest-on-chest from a private collection. Both have bandy legs, squared knees, small ball and claw feet and gadrooning on their bases, typically a New London County feature.

The towns of Litchfield, New Milford and Sharon prospered after the Revolution. Federal era cabinetmakers such as Silas Cheney (1776–1821) produced graceful case furniture embellished with string, fan and pinwheel inlays. A sideboard made in 1800 by Cheney for Tapping Reeve, founder of the first American law school in 1784, is a Litchfield Historical Society icon.

Five Cheney account books, also in the historical society’s collection, provide what Bray calls “arguably the most complete surviving record of any craftsman in early America.” At the end of his career, Cheney made the New York-style furniture craved by his affluent customers. On view is a mahogany and mahogany veneer Empire sideboard from the collection of Jeffrey Tillou.

Lambert Hitchcock, Cheney’s best known employee, left the town of Litchfield around 1818 to start his own increasingly mechanized shop on the Farmington River in Barkhamsted. By 1831, Hitchcock was the biggest manufacturer of chairs in the United States.

“It all happened quickly,” Smith writes. “The time that passed from settlement to the Revolution was only 30 years. By the time the next generation grew to maturity, the economy of the region had shifted again.”

Several companion displays round out the exhibition.

“Fake or Fabulous?” asks visitors to judge for themselves the authenticity of two pieces from the museum’s holdings.

“Not My Day Job” considers the variety of ways in which furniture makers supplemented their incomes.

“Antiques and The Colonial Revival,” a companion exhibit organized by Frey, explores the contributions of early Twentieth Century antiquarians and preservationists in Litchfield.

A symposium sponsored by Ron Bourgeault and Northeast Auctions is planned for Friday, October 17, at the Litchfield Community Center. Speakers and topics include Bray with “Furniture and Furniture Makers of Litchfield County”; Cooke, “New Directions in Furniture Studies”; Jobe, “Furniture Studies of Southeastern Massachusetts”; Patricia Kane, “Furniture Making in Newport, Rhode Island”; and Robert Trent, “New Discoveries about Dutch Furniture Makers in Connecticut.”

The 82-page color catalog and companion disk are available from the museum for $35, plus shipping and handling. A limited edition hardcover catalog costs $100.

The Litchfield Historical Society is at 7 South Street. For information, 860-567-4501 or www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org.

‘To Please Any Taste:

Litchfield County Furniture & Furniture Makers, 1780–1830’

 

‘To Please Any Taste’

On View At Litchfield Historical Society

Litchfield County Furniture

Reinterpreted In Litchfield

WEB

Image 10A

Corner cupboard from the Asa Curtiss House in Woodbury, Conn., circa 1780, 95 inches high by 53½ inches wide by 20¼ inches deep. Private collection.

Figure 12

Chest of drawers, Sharon/Salisbury area, Conn., circa 1800, 35 inches high by 40 inches wide by 19 inches deep. Courtesy of the Salisbury Association, Salisbury, Conn.

Image 6

Side chair, Woodbury, Conn., circa 1780, 41¾ inches high. Courtesy Bellamy-Ferriday House & Garden, Connecticut Landmarks.

Image 7

Chest-on-chest signed Bates How, 80½ inches tall by 45½ inches wide by 22 inches deep. Private collection.

Image 5

High chest of drawers, Watertown, Conn., circa 1780, 74 inches tall by 39½ inches wide by 18¼ inches deep. Private collection.

Image 14A

Label from inside drawer of table made by George Dewey, Litchfield, Conn., circa 1825. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

Image 16.

Sideboard purchased by Ruluff Dutcher of Canaan from the Litchfield shop of Silas Cheney in 1821, 41½ inches high by 65 inches wide by 24 inches deep. Courtesy Jeffrey Tillou Antiques, Litchfield, Conn.

Image 1

Litchfield County in 1811, drawn by Moses Warren and George Gillet, published by the General Assembly by Hudson & Goodwin. Courtesy of the National Archives, College Park, Md.

 

Image 2

Desk, descended in the Woodruff family of Litchfield, Conn., circa 1780, 41 inches high by 38¾ inches wide by 20 inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

Image 2A

Cross-brace base construction on a desk that descended in the Woodruff family of Litchfield, Conn., circa 1780, 41 inches high by 38¾ inches wide by 20 inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

Image 3

Illustration of the mortise construction for the cross brace on a desk from Litchfield, Conn., circa 1780. Drawing courtesy John LaGatutta.

 

Image 4

Chest-on-chest descended in the Stiles family of Woodbury, Conn., circa 1780, 91 inches high by 41¼ inches wide by 20½ inches deep. The dropped shell on the plinth, bandy legs and spread toes of the feet are characteristic of Woodbury case furniture. Private collection.

Image 8

High chest of drawers descended in the Catlin and Woodruff families of Litchfield or Harwinton, Conn., circa 1785, 71 inches high by 37½ inches wide by 19¾ inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

 

Figure 9

Side chair, Litchfield, Conn., circa 1780, 38½ inches high by 20 inches wide by 15½ inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

 

Image 10

Backside of corner cupboard from the Asa Curtiss House in Woodbury, Conn., circa 1780, 95 inches high by 53½ inches wide by 20¼ inches deep. Private collection.

Figure 11

Windsor side chair, tradition of ownership in the John Brown family of Torrington, Conn., circa 1800, 35 inches high by 14 inches wide by 15½ inches deep. Courtesy Torrington Historical Society.

Figure 13

Sideboard by Silas Cheney of Litchfield for Tapping Reeve, 1800, 41½ inches high by 74 inches wide by 28½ inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

 

Image 14

Table labeled by George Dewey, Litchfield, Conn., circa 1825, 28 inches high by 19¾ inches wide by 16 inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

Image 15.

Chest of drawers labeled by George Dewey, Litchfield, Conn., circa 1825, 44 inches high by 35½ inches wide by 18½ inches deep. Courtesy Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Conn.

Image 17

Chest of drawers, Litchfield, Conn., circa 1825, 48¾ inches high by 45¾ inches wide by 21 inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.

Image 18

Fancy chair in the bamboo style, one of a set of 16 side chairs and two matching arm chairs purchased by Tapping Reeve from Litchfield furniture maker Silas Cheney in 1815, 34 inches high by 18 inches wide by 15¼ inches deep. Courtesy Litchfield Historical Society.