June 9, 2009

We had our share of excitement this week when California decorator Michael Smith called us on Thursday to finalize the purchase of a beautiful king sized 1820’s tall post tiger maple antique bed to be delivered to the White House Friday morning. This was not our first job with the famous designer, but it has been the most exciting. We are delighted to do our share for the new First Family and thought our other customers might enjoy knowing that the Obamas had joined their ranks!

Here are links to a piece from the Today Show about Michael Smith and this newest commission and our local news station, WJAR, covering our contribution to this national story.

We have many beautiful beds to grace your home and will be happy to find one that fits your needs just as well. Give us a call!

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Sideboard; 1795-1805; New York (illustrated in the catalogue of the Girl Scouts Luan Exhibition, 1929, PI. 716). The following statements of Robert Adam (The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Esquires, No.1, 1773, p. 3) regarding architectural composition epitomize one aspect of his aesthetic theory which revolutionized English taste in the second half of the eighteenth century:

“Movement is meant to express, the rise and fall, the advance and recess, with other diversity of form, in the different parts of a building, so as to add greatly to the picturesque of the com¬position. For the rising and falling, advancing and receding, with the convexity and concavity, and other forms of the great parts. have the same effect in architecture, that hill and dale, fore-ground and distance, swelling and sinking have in landscape: That is, they serve to produce an agreeable and diversified contour, that groups and contrasts like a picture, and creates a variety of light and shade, which gives great spirit, beauty, and effect to the composition.”

Few other pieces of American furniture show so well such a variety of surface contours against a background of advancing and receding forms as does this great sideboard. Its conception is ceremonial, useful but not domestic.

Two years after a “Celleret Sideboard, with an Elliptic Middle and Ogee on each Side” was first listed and illustrated in the 1793 edition of The Cabinet-Makers’ London Book of Prices, a similar entry appeared in a Philadelphia edition. A year later, it was included in the first New York issue with a basic price for the simplest version of nine pounds, twelve shillings for labor-one of the higher quotations for making a piece of furniture. Although two extra legs cost only an additional seven shillings for labor, few eight-legged sideboards survive today and apparently few were made. But this sideboard, which is longer than the standard model of six feet, has many other extras. Inlaid ellipses; astragal¬ended rectangles of satinwood; triple-string outlined panels of mahogany veneers on the body; inlaid “panels [of satinwood] with a gothic top, and a hollow bottom” on three sides of the front legs; inlaid flutes at the tops of the legs; extra drawers; and “a cupboard underneath the middle drawer with two doors, sweep [curved] front” and “stiles” on either side “worked round” would make this one of the most expensive pieces of American furniture to produce. Apparently only a few were willing to pay the price.

Although this sideboard might have been made in Connecticut, where a few eight-legged sideboards with local histories of ownership are known, the character of the ornament and the presence of ash as a secondary wood seem to favor a New York attribution despite the fact that no known labeled New York sideboard, of which there are several, helps to identify this one. But on other furniture forms made in New York, triple-string outlined panels, inlaid flutes, and astragal-ended and elliptical inlaid satinwood panels are found.

Dimensions: height 41inches, width 79.5, depth 28.5 Materials: mahogany; mahogany and satinwood veneers on white pine, and light and dark wood stringing; drawer linings, tulipwood; framing, white pine with ash strips under the top.

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Cabriole armchair, painted white and gold; c. 1800; Philadelphia. This sumptuous painted armchair with upholstered back and carved and applied composition ornament highlighted with burnished gold was one of the most fashionable chairs when made. Hepplewhite called chairs with upholstered backs cabriole chairs, and this term seems to have been generally used. However, Sheraton called the type drawing-room chairs, and that name was re¬tained by the Philadelphia cabinetmakers Joseph B. Barry & Son when they had two of Sheraton’s armchairs re-engraved on their trade card (W. M. Hornor Jr., Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture, 1935, PI. 432). Of two related chairs, Plates 32 and 34 in his Drawing Book (1802), Sheraton remarked: “These chairs are finished in white and gold, or the ornaments may be japanned; but the French finish them in mahogany, with gilt mouldings.”

Mahogany furniture is commonly regarded today as being in the highest style, but it was not always so. In Jefferson’s inventory of the White House furnishings taken when he left the Presidency in 1809, twelve lots of chairs variously described as “crimson and Gold,” “blue and Gold,” “Gold and green,” and “black and Gold” are called fashionable; but the word does nol occur in a single listing of mahogany chairs, even those with “crimson damask bottoms.” The vogue for painted and gilt furniture was probably heightened by the popularity of French fumi• ture among United States leaders. From 1790 onward, Jefferson, Monroe, John Adams, and others acquired it while in France. Washington bought some at the dispersal of the effects of Count de Moustiers, the first French minister to the United States. Much of it was finished in gold leaf or painted white or gray and enlivened with gilt.

As early as 1787, William Long, “Cabinetmaker and Carver, Late of London,” announced in the Pennsylvania Packet of Philadelphia that he made “French Sophas in the modern taste, on as reasonable terms as them of the oldest fashion . . . Cabriole and French Chairs on reasonable terms.” Among Long’s stock advertised after his death in 1794 were “a few sets of fashionable elbow painted chairs” and “a set of Mahogany cabriole chairs.” Several factors point to Philadelphia as the place where this superb chair was made. The general outline and the stepped-down arms, although here fitted with pads, are comparable to those on other fine armchairs made in that city. Philadelphia chairs are frequently found with straight tapered and reeded legs with a drum at the top and a turned spade foot.

Dimensions: height 36.5 inches, width 2O.25, depth 18.25. Materials: ash (no secondary woods); upholstered in green tabaret, silk with moired and satin stripes.

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Gentleman’s secretary; 1793-1805; Salem, Massachusetts. Label of Edmund Johnson (working c. 1793-1811). “This piece is intended for a gentleman to write at, to keep his own accounts, and serves as a library. The style of finishing is neat, and sometimes approaching to elegance, being at times made of satinwood, with japanned ornaments.” So wrote Sheraton of a form similar to this one, but with different details, entitled “Gentleman’s Secretary,” illustrated as Plate 52 in his Drawing Book. For a long time s~ch pieces of furniture as this have been called Salem desks or Salem secretaries. A dozen or more examples are known. Three, including this secretary, all with the label of Edmund Johnson, display the same form and concept of ornament. One of these, owned by Mrs. Walter Wright in 1926 (illustrated in Luke Vincent Lock¬wood, Colonial Furnitu1′e in America, 3rd ed., 1926, Vol. I, p. 376, Fig. XLVI), appears identical to this one except for variations in the stringing. The other secGretary, in the Henry Ford Museum (illustrated in ANTIQUES, February 1958, p. 169), substitutes heavier ebony line stringing on the pilasters for the light full-blown bellfowers and intervening ebony dots and pointed ovals seen on this example.

The use of single-line stringing of light wood or, sometimes, of triple stringing (ebony or stained holly between two white lines) to form panels is a feature frequently found on Salem and North Shore cabinetwork. Occasionally, on furniture feet of that area, as on the piece shown here, the stringing lines run straight down to the floor. The eagle finial, which is like that on the Wright secretary, and the brasses appear to be original. The brass, spired, ball-shape finials are probably replacements, as are the old drawer pulls stamped with a classical figure with a ship in the background.

Dimensions: height 94 inches, width 66.25, depth 18,5 Materials: mahogany and mahogany veneer inlaid with light and dark woods over white pine; secondary wood, white pine.

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By Jenna Gaillard – Published in Westport News
jgaillard@bcnnevy.com

Jeff Jenkins, the owner of Leonards New England, received the call of a lifetime last Thursday when Obama decorator Michael Smith phoned him to finalize the purchase of an antique king-size bed for the White House.

“We’re proud of the fact that one of our beds is going to the White House,” said Patty Jaumin, store manager of Leonards New England in Westport. “We’re thrilled.”

The antique bed acquired by Smith was delivered last Friday and was purchased from the Leonards New England store in Seekonk Mass. According to Jaumin, the Leonards New England store in Westport has beds similar to the one Smith purchased for the Obamas in their inventory. Jaumin said she couldn’t reveal how much the bed cost and she doesn’t know where it will go in the White House or who it’s for.

According to a press release, the American antique tall post bed was “adapted to king-size from bedposts that were fashioned from tiger maple in New Jersey or Pennsylvania in the early 19th century,” All bf the work done on the bed was completed in a workshop in Massachusetts. That work done included making the bed wider and longer, as well as creating a new headboard and new side rails. Now, according to Jaumin, the bed is a “standard king-size bed.”

“We’re known for a variety of antiques and specifically our beds and our full line of reproduction furniture,” said Jaumin.

According to the store’s catalog, it’s also known for its ability to “customize pre-1850 antique beds., making them comfortable for modern-day use.” In order to transforn1 a bed, the firm’s craftsmen “take the side rails with peg or rope holes and refit them as cross rails, running east and west,” and try to save as much of the old bed as possible. Finally, a headboard is created using ,wood that matches the posts.

“We have skilled craftsmen who make the reproduction beds and resize the ,antique beds,” said Jaumin.

Leonards New England has been around for 75 years. Soon after the store’s opening in 1933, it gained a reputation as a workshop that could restore different types of antique furniture and resize beds. The store first opened in seekonk. In 1990, Jenkins opened a second store in Westport.

According to Jaumin, Leonards New England has had some famous clients purchase items through a decorator from the store, including Steven Spielberg, Julia Roberts and Bill Cosby.

Leonards New England is located at 1026 Post Road E. in Westport.

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Retail consultant and blogger Ted Hurlbut sees a world of opportunity coming for small retailers. And he says they can thank Best Buy, Costco and Wal-Mart for their good fortune.

“We are seeing a diverging retail sector,” said Hurlbut, whose firm, Hurlbut & Associates, is based in Foxboro, Mass. “We are seeing an increasingly smaller number of increasingly larger retailers providing core basics to customers. We are seeing an increasing commoditization of products in everything from flat-screen TVs to underwear. “

This concentration on cost-driven mass retailing creates big opportunities for small retailers that can satisfy consumers’ passions by selling unique products, he says. “It may be high-performance bicycles; it could be hunting and fishing stores that are outside the areas served by a superstore.”

Or it could be old beds. One of Hurlbut’s clients, Leonards New England, in

Seekonk, Mass., is tapping a lucrative niche by restoring and selling antique beds. “They take old, beaten-down antique beds, refinish and resize them, and retail them out,” he said. Prices range from $4,000 to $20,000; one recent customer is the Obama White House.

“There are opportunities, as there always are and always have been,” he said. “The opportunity is for retailers to take retailing back to a highly personal level, to engage the customer’s passions. It’s almost a revolutionary concept in a world where everything is cost-driven and commoditized.

“The race to the bottom in corporate retailing is only going to intensify. It’s the only thing they know. They don’t know how to return to a personal style of retailing. They only know how to compete on price.”

Hazelett, Curt. “In Praise of Mom – And – Pops: Local Stores Offer Vital Differentiation And Color To Malls.” SCT Shopping Centers Today May 2009.134

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For years Hazel and Lester Leonard advertised Leonards Antiques in the Antiques magazine. Here are some interesteing articles from that publication.

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