Private dealer in New York City specializing exclusively in top quality antique American furniture of the first 40 years of the 19th century

American classical furniture incorporates Empire and French Restauration styles of which Duncan Phyfe was an leading designer

beds

case furniture

American Classical period mahogany armchairs

American Federal period side and dining chairs

Antique secretaries of the American Classical period of furniture-making

sideboards

antique American recamiers of the Classical or Empire period

antique American stools of the early 19th century

dining and breakfast tables

antique American card tables from the early 19th century Federal / Classical periods

antique mahogany center tables from the American Classical furniture period

dining tables

library, drum, writing tables

early 19th century American made pier tables - Restauration period

work tables

other tables - console, dressing, occasional, sofa, etc.

antique lighting

giltwood mirrors

miscellaneous furniture

objets d'art

paintings

 

RARE AND IMPORTANT CARVED MAHOGANY SLEIGH BED
Boston, 1825

| Click for additional image |

The sides having a gadrooned rail extending to paneled reserves with anthemion carving above the legs and continuing up to massive acanthus carved scrolls, holding between them massive S curved ends of book matched figured mahogany, the frame raised on short acanthus carved legs on massive reeded brass cup casters. replaced bolt covers

H: 41" W: 102" D: 58"

Arguably the greatest sleigh bed ever made in Boston in the period, this bed is related to a group of side chairs thought to be the finest Klismos chairs produced in Boston. Examples of this set of chairs are in the collection at Winterthur and in the Kaufman collection and are pictured in J. Michael Flanigan, American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC., 1986) p. 51-2, and in Wendy A. Cooper, Classical Taste in America 1800-1840 (The Baltimore Museum of Art, Abbeville Press, 1993) pl. 77. The gadrooned seat rail centering a triangular acanthus carved element is identical to that on the bed's rail. Additionally, the anthemion elements on the swag-carved stay rail of the chairs relates to the carving in the reserves above the legs of the bed. This relationship suggests that the chairs and bed were made by the same firm and possibly even for the same client.

The chair design was inspired both by designs published by Thomas Hope in his Household Furniture (London, 1807), pl.24 and in Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts, series III, vol. 4, pl. 22, p. 244, November 1824, in a design by John Taylor. According to Cooper, the Boston Athenaeum had been given a copy of Hope by 1819 and they also had a subscription to Ackermann, a monthly intelligencer (London 1809-1828).

While "Alcove Beds" or "French" beds (beds designed to be viewed from the side) were known in America as early as 1803 with the publication of Sheraton's Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803) and Honoré Lannuier's arrival in New York the same year, this example, possibly derived from a drawing in Ackermann's of 1817, probably dates to the time of the related Boston chairs, circa 1825.

B-9910241

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