拍品专文
In March of 1816 twenty-eight year-old Portsmouth merchant Jacob Wendell ordered from the cabinet firm of Jonathan Judkins and William Senter this worktable for $10.00. Wendell noted this purchase in his account book under 'sundries to furnish my home' which he had purchased the previous year from funds made as an importer of West Indies goods and from family cotton mills (Judkins and Senter to Jacob Wendell, bill dated 27 June 1816 and Jacob Wendell Ledger 2, 1814-1827, Wendell Collectin, Baker Library, Harvard Business School; Ward and Cullity, 'The Wendell Family Furnitre,' in Beckerdite, ed., American Furniture (Chipstone, 1993), p. 235-62). Wendell placed the table in the 'Back Sitting Room' of his Pleasant Street mansion with six chairs, a light stand, pembroke table, looking glass and carpet. A relatively new form at the turn of the nineteen century, this sewing stand was probably a central part of the lives of the Wendell women who would have worked in a relaxed private rear room rather than in the formal front public rooms of their home (Inventory of Jacob Wendell, 1828, Wendell Collection, Portsmouth Athenaeum; Jobe, Portsmouth Furniture (SPNEA, 1993), p. 270, fig. 66a).
Portsmouth cabinetmakers and their clientele favored Federal worktables with scalloped shelves. Fashioned with one or two drawers, reeded or veneered stiles and reeded or turned legs, there were many options available, one of which fellow merchant James Rundlet selected for his home on Middle Street (Jobe, fig. 66). Judkins and Senter's cabinetshop was one of the more prominent in Federal Portsmouth. Their shop and those of other craftsmen in Portsmouth looked to the urban centers of Massachusetts for inspiration. To embellish this stand, as on other furniture from their shop, they selected native woods such as flame birch veneer on the drawer fronts and bird's-eye veneer on the stiles to imitate the more expensive imported satinwood used on Boston tables: (these local woods actually provided a more decorative visually enhanced surface.)
A rare document to both owner and craftsmen, this table firmly establishes a sphere of tastes and fashions popular in Portsmouth in the early Federal era. An identical two drawer stand with an inscription from Kittery, Maine, and probably also made by Judkins and Senter, was sold across the bay to one of the many Piscataqua communities that were extensions of Portsmouth's fashion network (The Magazine Antiques 73, no.2 (February 1958):138). There are twenty-two known related work tables with scalloped shelves, but far fewer examples examples survive like this one with two drawers, veneered stiles, gallery and reeded legs. See Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (University Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 378-79; Nutting, Furniture Treasury (New York, 1928), fig. 1167; and two tables illustrated in Levy Catalogue 3, no. 54 (fall, 1977).
Portsmouth cabinetmakers and their clientele favored Federal worktables with scalloped shelves. Fashioned with one or two drawers, reeded or veneered stiles and reeded or turned legs, there were many options available, one of which fellow merchant James Rundlet selected for his home on Middle Street (Jobe, fig. 66). Judkins and Senter's cabinetshop was one of the more prominent in Federal Portsmouth. Their shop and those of other craftsmen in Portsmouth looked to the urban centers of Massachusetts for inspiration. To embellish this stand, as on other furniture from their shop, they selected native woods such as flame birch veneer on the drawer fronts and bird's-eye veneer on the stiles to imitate the more expensive imported satinwood used on Boston tables: (these local woods actually provided a more decorative visually enhanced surface.)
A rare document to both owner and craftsmen, this table firmly establishes a sphere of tastes and fashions popular in Portsmouth in the early Federal era. An identical two drawer stand with an inscription from Kittery, Maine, and probably also made by Judkins and Senter, was sold across the bay to one of the many Piscataqua communities that were extensions of Portsmouth's fashion network (The Magazine Antiques 73, no.2 (February 1958):138). There are twenty-two known related work tables with scalloped shelves, but far fewer examples examples survive like this one with two drawers, veneered stiles, gallery and reeded legs. See Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (University Wisconsin Press, 1984), pp. 378-79; Nutting, Furniture Treasury (New York, 1928), fig. 1167; and two tables illustrated in Levy Catalogue 3, no. 54 (fall, 1977).