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Lot Essay
Exhibiting delicate proportions and features distinctive to Seymour forms, this desk is a fine example of sophisticated Federal furniture produced in Boston in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
John Seymour and his son Thomas emigrated from England to Portland, Maine in 1785, moving to Boston in 1794. These eminent Boston cabinetmakers seamlessly integrated materials, pattern and meticulous workmanship creating beautiful forms. They introduced to Boston the refinement of English standards of craftmanship, veneer use and neoclassic design.
The aspects of construction and decoration within this desk are consistent with labelled and attributed Seymour examples. Similar attributed examples are illustrated in Stoneman, John and Thomas Seymour Cabinetmakers in Boston 1794-1816 (Boston, 1959), pp. 64 and 98. Highly characteristic of Seymour cabinetmaking, evident here, is the use of rosewood banding, fine dovetails, numbered interior drawer bottoms, blue-green painted pigeonholes, cockbeading set into drawer fronts, sloping fall front lid and transitional spade feet. The inlay used on this desk is recorded on the sample page of inlays found in New England (Stoneman, p. 372).
John Seymour and his son Thomas emigrated from England to Portland, Maine in 1785, moving to Boston in 1794. These eminent Boston cabinetmakers seamlessly integrated materials, pattern and meticulous workmanship creating beautiful forms. They introduced to Boston the refinement of English standards of craftmanship, veneer use and neoclassic design.
The aspects of construction and decoration within this desk are consistent with labelled and attributed Seymour examples. Similar attributed examples are illustrated in Stoneman, John and Thomas Seymour Cabinetmakers in Boston 1794-1816 (Boston, 1959), pp. 64 and 98. Highly characteristic of Seymour cabinetmaking, evident here, is the use of rosewood banding, fine dovetails, numbered interior drawer bottoms, blue-green painted pigeonholes, cockbeading set into drawer fronts, sloping fall front lid and transitional spade feet. The inlay used on this desk is recorded on the sample page of inlays found in New England (Stoneman, p. 372).