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Lot Essay
Descending to the present with an undisturbed finish and along a direct line of ownership, this chest-on-chest is a remarkable survival of Boston's Chippendale era. The well-proportioned case with exquisitely carved details embodies the restrained elegance of high-style Boston furniture of the late eighteenth century and points to the work of the region's renowned cabinetmaker, Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. (1734-1809) of Charlestown.
BENJAMIN FROTHINGHAM, JR. OF CHARLESTOWN
Bearing a distinctively and elaborately carved shell, this chest-on-chest belongs to a small group of similarly embellished case furniture attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. (1734-1809). The attribution is based upon a chest-on-chest with related carving labeled by Frothingham and illustrated in Antiques (November 1952), p. 386. While the group features variations, the shell on this chest-on-chest is almost identical to those on a matching high chest and dressing table (fig. 2; for the dressing table, see Sotheby's New York, The Collection of Doris and Richard M. Seidlitz, 30 January 1988, lot 1771; for a discussion of this group, see Christie's, New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, 16 January 1999, lot 606).
Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. (1734-1809) may have established his own shop as early as 1753, the date inscribed on a bombe desk-and-bookcase and bearing his signature now in the collections of the Department of State, Washington, D.C. Around the same time, he began his military career and enlisted in Col. Richard Gridley's artillery company. His house and shop destroyed during the early months of the Revolution, Frothingham served throughout the War, rising to the rank of Major and joining the Society of the Cincinnati. The years following the War appear to have been his most productive. An active member in several fraternal organizations, he probably re-established his shop soon after the War's conclusion. Like the chest-on-chest offered here, most of his surviving furniture appears to date from this period.
EDWARD TUCKERMAN OF BOSTON
The chest was made for one of Boston's leading citizens of the early Republic, Edward Tuckerman (1740-1818), and descended to the present generation through a succession of eminent members of the Tuckerman family. Losing his father at the age of eleven, Edward Tuckerman entered the home of his uncle, Stephen Harris, and upon finishing his schooling, was employed in Harris' grain business. In 1766, he married his cousin, Harris' daughter Elizabeth (b. 1748), and in the same year became partners with his father-in-law. He soon became Boston's premier grain merchant. Developing and packaging an improved ship biscuit that was resistant to mold, he supplied the shipping industry of Boston and the Eastern shore and in the course amassed a substantial fortune. An ardent patriot, he was a member of the Sons of Liberty and served under George Washington as a Lieutenant in the patriot militia from 1774 to 1776. During the siege of Boston in 1776, the British forces struck his Washington Street (now Orange Street) house with a cannon ball. Tuckerman refused to remove the embedded cannon ball and his house, with its visible testament to the War, remained a tourist attraction through the end of the nineteenth century. Widely respected by his peers, he was chosen along with Major Thomas Cogswell to disburse the large sum of money to be paid to the patriot troops.
After the war, Tuckerman, along with other members of Boston's elite, held a number of political offices and positions in charitable organizations. From 1782 to his death in 1818, he served as the city's Surveyor of Wheat and in 1805 was chosen as a representative to Massachusetts' General Court. In 1795, with Paul Revere as President, he served as the first Vice-President of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of employees. Also with Paul Revere, he sought the repeal of laws against theater performances and was one of a small group that procured the charter for the Massachusetts Mutual Company, Boston's first fire insurance company. He also was one of the subscribers to the Massachusetts General Hospital Fund and a member of the Massachusetts Society for the Aid of Immigrants (all biographical information is taken from Bayard Tuckerman, Tuckerman Genealogy (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914).
Surviving documents, paintings, silver and furniture, including the chest-on-chest offered here demonstrate Edward Tuckerman's patronage of the arts during these years. In all likelihood, the chest-on-chest was commissioned from Benjamin Frothingham during the years after 1783, when Frothingham had finished his military service and had resumed his cabinetmaking business. The chest may be the "1 Mahogany Bureau $7" in the Front Chamber listed in the extensive inventory of Tuckerman's estate taken in 1818. If this is a reference to the chest offered here, the chest stood in the main bedroom of his house alongside bedding valued at $25, six mahogany chairs at $6 and a Kidminster carpet at $15 (Inventory of the Estate of Edward Tuckerman, Suffolk County Probate, Records, 277: 176). Other Frothingham furniture descended in families closely allied with the Tuckermans, suggesting an "inner circle" of an artisan and his clients linked by patriotism, prestige and financial success. A similar chest-on-chest signed by Frothingham may have been owned by Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854) who was elected to the General Court with Tuckerman; two of Perkins' daughters and Tuckerman's son Joseph (1778-1840) all married siblings from the Cary family. Furthermore, the high chest (fig. 2) and matching dressing table with almost identical shells discussed above was owned, according to family tradition, by the Hancock family. In 1793, Edward Tuckerman appraised the estate of Governor John Hancock (Christie's, New York, Important American Furniture, January 16, 1999, lot 702 and Israel Sack, Inc., advertisement, Antiques (June 1999), inside front cover; Christie's, New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, January 16, 1999, lot 606).
Not only a colleague of Paul Revere in the endeavors described above, Tuckerman also purchased a number of engraved pieces from the famous silversmith, such as the sugar basket illustrated in fig. 3 inscribed ET to EHT. Revere's account books include two other commissions for Edward Tuckerman. In 1782, Revere charged Tuckerman L4 15s for a teapot, an additional 12s for engraving a cypher and ten years later L9 12s for an engraved coffee pot (Paul Revere, Account Books). The teapot is undoubtedly the same piece that was owned by a descendant in 1914 and described by Bayard Tuckerman as "a beautiful Revere teapot marked 'E.T. to E.T.'" (Tuckerman, p. 43). Other survivals of Edward Tuckerman's silver include an engraved tankard by Samuel Minott and two unmarked canns now in the Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver at Historic Deerfield, Inc. (Flynt and Fales, The Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver (Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1968), pp.134-135). Tuckerman also patronized local artists. His portrait was painted in pastel by Gerrit Schipper in 1804. After his death, his son, Joseph inherited the painting and another son, Henry Harris Tuckerman (1783-1860) commissioned four copies from John Ritto Penniman (c.1782-1841), one of which is in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum; owned by a descendant of Henry Harris Tuckerman, the portrait illustrated in fig. 1 may also be one of the Penniman copies. The commission of the copies by Penniman in 1823 is documented by several letters in the Salisbury Family Papers at the American Antiquarian Society and details Joseph Tuckerman's ownership of the original copy as well as Henry's purchase of a frame from John Doggett (1780-1857) (research by Laura K. Mills, Curatorial Assistant, Worcester Art Museum).
[He] has left behind him as a memorial ...an institution which is to live for ages, and which entitles him to be ranked among the benefactors of this city and the world.
-William Ellery Channing, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., 1841.
THE REVEREND JOSEPH TUCKERMAN
The chest-on-chest was inherited by Edward's son, Joseph Tuckerman (1778-1840). Born in his father's house, Joseph became a renowned minister, philanthropist and pioneer in social reform. He attended Phillips Academy and graduated from Harvard in 1798, a classmate with his life-long friend and famous preacher, William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). In 1801, he was ordained to the Unitarian ministry and was a pastor in Winnisimmet (now Chelsea) just outside Boston. There, he founded the first American Seaman's Friends Society; he married Abigail Parkman and after her early death, married second, Sarah Cary in 1808. In 1826, he moved back to Boston and founded the Ministry at Large, a city mission for the poor, which served as models for similar institutions in France and Liverpool, England. He remained close to his Harvard friend and in 1831 arranged a meeting between Channing and Alexis de Tocqueville. He was painted by Gilbert Stuart and a number of his portraits survive among his descendants, Harvard University and the Tuckerman Institute, Liverpool, England. Joseph Tuckerman's death in 1840 inspired a number of lengthy eulogies attesting to his life's work on behalf of the dispossessed (Tuckerman, pp. 66-113; for more on his writings and career, see Daniel T. McColgan, Joseph Tuckerman: Pioneer in American Social Work (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940).
LUCIUS AND BAYARD TUCKERMAN
After Joseph Tuckerman's death in 1840, the chest-on-chest continued to descend along the male lines, to Lucius Tuckerman (1818-1890) and Bayard Tuckerman (1855-after 1914). Lucius Tuckerman married Elizabeth Wolcott of Newport, a niece of William Ellery Channing. After a brief sojourn in Chicago, he and his brother Joseph started an iron manufacturing company under the name J. and L. Tuckerman in 1845. Producing a superior formula that coincided with a boom in the industry, the brothers enjoyed considerable financial success. Like his father and grandfather, Lucius supported numerous charities and was a founding member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1874, he acquired a summer residence in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and an old shipping label on the back of the chest indicates that during Lucius' ownership the chest furnished this house. Soon thereafter, the family moved to Washington D.C. where Lucius was an active member of the city's social and political life (Tuckerman, pp. 187-210). Lucius' son, Bayard Tuckerman (b. 1855) was born in New York City and in 1882, married Annie Osgood Smith, a daughter of the Rev. Dr. John Smith and Harriet Appleton in Ipswich, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1878, Bayard pursued a literary career. He was a professor of English literature at Princeton University and published a number of historical biographies including the history of the Tuckerman family cited here. The chest was inherited by his son and then his granddaughter, the present owner.
Fig. 1: Portrait of Edward Tuckerman, possibly by John Ritto Penniman. Collection of Mrs. George F.B. Johnson (nee Tuckerman).
Fig. 2: Detail of shell-carved drawer from high chest attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, Jr., Charlestown, Massachusetts, late 18th century. Sold in these Rooms, the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, January 16, 1999, lot 606.
Fig. 3: Detail, lot 141.
Fig. 4: Sugar basket, circa 1798 by Paul Revere. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Helen and Alice Colburn Fund, 39.39.
Fig. 5: Joseph Tuckerman, M. Gauci after Archibald Robertson, lithograph, 1834. Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
BENJAMIN FROTHINGHAM, JR. OF CHARLESTOWN
Bearing a distinctively and elaborately carved shell, this chest-on-chest belongs to a small group of similarly embellished case furniture attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. (1734-1809). The attribution is based upon a chest-on-chest with related carving labeled by Frothingham and illustrated in Antiques (November 1952), p. 386. While the group features variations, the shell on this chest-on-chest is almost identical to those on a matching high chest and dressing table (fig. 2; for the dressing table, see Sotheby's New York, The Collection of Doris and Richard M. Seidlitz, 30 January 1988, lot 1771; for a discussion of this group, see Christie's, New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, 16 January 1999, lot 606).
Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. (1734-1809) may have established his own shop as early as 1753, the date inscribed on a bombe desk-and-bookcase and bearing his signature now in the collections of the Department of State, Washington, D.C. Around the same time, he began his military career and enlisted in Col. Richard Gridley's artillery company. His house and shop destroyed during the early months of the Revolution, Frothingham served throughout the War, rising to the rank of Major and joining the Society of the Cincinnati. The years following the War appear to have been his most productive. An active member in several fraternal organizations, he probably re-established his shop soon after the War's conclusion. Like the chest-on-chest offered here, most of his surviving furniture appears to date from this period.
EDWARD TUCKERMAN OF BOSTON
The chest was made for one of Boston's leading citizens of the early Republic, Edward Tuckerman (1740-1818), and descended to the present generation through a succession of eminent members of the Tuckerman family. Losing his father at the age of eleven, Edward Tuckerman entered the home of his uncle, Stephen Harris, and upon finishing his schooling, was employed in Harris' grain business. In 1766, he married his cousin, Harris' daughter Elizabeth (b. 1748), and in the same year became partners with his father-in-law. He soon became Boston's premier grain merchant. Developing and packaging an improved ship biscuit that was resistant to mold, he supplied the shipping industry of Boston and the Eastern shore and in the course amassed a substantial fortune. An ardent patriot, he was a member of the Sons of Liberty and served under George Washington as a Lieutenant in the patriot militia from 1774 to 1776. During the siege of Boston in 1776, the British forces struck his Washington Street (now Orange Street) house with a cannon ball. Tuckerman refused to remove the embedded cannon ball and his house, with its visible testament to the War, remained a tourist attraction through the end of the nineteenth century. Widely respected by his peers, he was chosen along with Major Thomas Cogswell to disburse the large sum of money to be paid to the patriot troops.
After the war, Tuckerman, along with other members of Boston's elite, held a number of political offices and positions in charitable organizations. From 1782 to his death in 1818, he served as the city's Surveyor of Wheat and in 1805 was chosen as a representative to Massachusetts' General Court. In 1795, with Paul Revere as President, he served as the first Vice-President of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of employees. Also with Paul Revere, he sought the repeal of laws against theater performances and was one of a small group that procured the charter for the Massachusetts Mutual Company, Boston's first fire insurance company. He also was one of the subscribers to the Massachusetts General Hospital Fund and a member of the Massachusetts Society for the Aid of Immigrants (all biographical information is taken from Bayard Tuckerman, Tuckerman Genealogy (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1914).
Surviving documents, paintings, silver and furniture, including the chest-on-chest offered here demonstrate Edward Tuckerman's patronage of the arts during these years. In all likelihood, the chest-on-chest was commissioned from Benjamin Frothingham during the years after 1783, when Frothingham had finished his military service and had resumed his cabinetmaking business. The chest may be the "1 Mahogany Bureau $7" in the Front Chamber listed in the extensive inventory of Tuckerman's estate taken in 1818. If this is a reference to the chest offered here, the chest stood in the main bedroom of his house alongside bedding valued at $25, six mahogany chairs at $6 and a Kidminster carpet at $15 (Inventory of the Estate of Edward Tuckerman, Suffolk County Probate, Records, 277: 176). Other Frothingham furniture descended in families closely allied with the Tuckermans, suggesting an "inner circle" of an artisan and his clients linked by patriotism, prestige and financial success. A similar chest-on-chest signed by Frothingham may have been owned by Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854) who was elected to the General Court with Tuckerman; two of Perkins' daughters and Tuckerman's son Joseph (1778-1840) all married siblings from the Cary family. Furthermore, the high chest (fig. 2) and matching dressing table with almost identical shells discussed above was owned, according to family tradition, by the Hancock family. In 1793, Edward Tuckerman appraised the estate of Governor John Hancock (Christie's, New York, Important American Furniture, January 16, 1999, lot 702 and Israel Sack, Inc., advertisement, Antiques (June 1999), inside front cover; Christie's, New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, January 16, 1999, lot 606).
Not only a colleague of Paul Revere in the endeavors described above, Tuckerman also purchased a number of engraved pieces from the famous silversmith, such as the sugar basket illustrated in fig. 3 inscribed ET to EHT. Revere's account books include two other commissions for Edward Tuckerman. In 1782, Revere charged Tuckerman L4 15s for a teapot, an additional 12s for engraving a cypher and ten years later L9 12s for an engraved coffee pot (Paul Revere, Account Books). The teapot is undoubtedly the same piece that was owned by a descendant in 1914 and described by Bayard Tuckerman as "a beautiful Revere teapot marked 'E.T. to E.T.'" (Tuckerman, p. 43). Other survivals of Edward Tuckerman's silver include an engraved tankard by Samuel Minott and two unmarked canns now in the Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver at Historic Deerfield, Inc. (Flynt and Fales, The Heritage Foundation Collection of Silver (Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1968), pp.134-135). Tuckerman also patronized local artists. His portrait was painted in pastel by Gerrit Schipper in 1804. After his death, his son, Joseph inherited the painting and another son, Henry Harris Tuckerman (1783-1860) commissioned four copies from John Ritto Penniman (c.1782-1841), one of which is in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum; owned by a descendant of Henry Harris Tuckerman, the portrait illustrated in fig. 1 may also be one of the Penniman copies. The commission of the copies by Penniman in 1823 is documented by several letters in the Salisbury Family Papers at the American Antiquarian Society and details Joseph Tuckerman's ownership of the original copy as well as Henry's purchase of a frame from John Doggett (1780-1857) (research by Laura K. Mills, Curatorial Assistant, Worcester Art Museum).
[He] has left behind him as a memorial ...an institution which is to live for ages, and which entitles him to be ranked among the benefactors of this city and the world.
-William Ellery Channing, Discourse on the Life and Character of the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., 1841.
THE REVEREND JOSEPH TUCKERMAN
The chest-on-chest was inherited by Edward's son, Joseph Tuckerman (1778-1840). Born in his father's house, Joseph became a renowned minister, philanthropist and pioneer in social reform. He attended Phillips Academy and graduated from Harvard in 1798, a classmate with his life-long friend and famous preacher, William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). In 1801, he was ordained to the Unitarian ministry and was a pastor in Winnisimmet (now Chelsea) just outside Boston. There, he founded the first American Seaman's Friends Society; he married Abigail Parkman and after her early death, married second, Sarah Cary in 1808. In 1826, he moved back to Boston and founded the Ministry at Large, a city mission for the poor, which served as models for similar institutions in France and Liverpool, England. He remained close to his Harvard friend and in 1831 arranged a meeting between Channing and Alexis de Tocqueville. He was painted by Gilbert Stuart and a number of his portraits survive among his descendants, Harvard University and the Tuckerman Institute, Liverpool, England. Joseph Tuckerman's death in 1840 inspired a number of lengthy eulogies attesting to his life's work on behalf of the dispossessed (Tuckerman, pp. 66-113; for more on his writings and career, see Daniel T. McColgan, Joseph Tuckerman: Pioneer in American Social Work (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940).
LUCIUS AND BAYARD TUCKERMAN
After Joseph Tuckerman's death in 1840, the chest-on-chest continued to descend along the male lines, to Lucius Tuckerman (1818-1890) and Bayard Tuckerman (1855-after 1914). Lucius Tuckerman married Elizabeth Wolcott of Newport, a niece of William Ellery Channing. After a brief sojourn in Chicago, he and his brother Joseph started an iron manufacturing company under the name J. and L. Tuckerman in 1845. Producing a superior formula that coincided with a boom in the industry, the brothers enjoyed considerable financial success. Like his father and grandfather, Lucius supported numerous charities and was a founding member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1874, he acquired a summer residence in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and an old shipping label on the back of the chest indicates that during Lucius' ownership the chest furnished this house. Soon thereafter, the family moved to Washington D.C. where Lucius was an active member of the city's social and political life (Tuckerman, pp. 187-210). Lucius' son, Bayard Tuckerman (b. 1855) was born in New York City and in 1882, married Annie Osgood Smith, a daughter of the Rev. Dr. John Smith and Harriet Appleton in Ipswich, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1878, Bayard pursued a literary career. He was a professor of English literature at Princeton University and published a number of historical biographies including the history of the Tuckerman family cited here. The chest was inherited by his son and then his granddaughter, the present owner.
Fig. 1: Portrait of Edward Tuckerman, possibly by John Ritto Penniman. Collection of Mrs. George F.B. Johnson (nee Tuckerman).
Fig. 2: Detail of shell-carved drawer from high chest attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, Jr., Charlestown, Massachusetts, late 18th century. Sold in these Rooms, the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Britton, January 16, 1999, lot 606.
Fig. 3: Detail, lot 141.
Fig. 4: Sugar basket, circa 1798 by Paul Revere. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Helen and Alice Colburn Fund, 39.39.
Fig. 5: Joseph Tuckerman, M. Gauci after Archibald Robertson, lithograph, 1834. Courtesy, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.