“1761-1771
Artist/Maker: Shop of William Buckland
Artist/Maker: William Bernard Sears
Origin: The united states, Virginia, Richmond County
OH: 32″ OW: 45 3/8″ OD: 31 1/4”.
Cherry (by microanalysis), beech (by microanalysis), and marble.
Museum Purchase
Acc. No. 1993-64
Look: rectangular sideboard desk on 4 projecting, canted legs in the variety of architectural consoles with scrolled feet on blocks the sides of each and every leg are carved with a huge volute and an prolonged, comprehensive blown flower the outward faces of the rear legs are molded the outward faces of the front legs are molded and topped with carved acanthus leaves front and side rails are trimmed with a large gadroon molding at the higher edge and rope molding at the reduce edge the front rails centers a large shell flanked by voluted acanthus leaves the rectangular marble top rated is established in just the rails and bordered by cherry going through strips.
Construction: The rails are tenoned into the legs and fastened with massive pins. A few medial braces are open-dovetailed into the front and rear rails. The marble slab rests on these braces and fits into rabbets reduce into the front and rear rails. Cherry facings are glued and nailed to the tops of the front and side rails to enframe the marble. The moldings on the front and side rails have complicated miter joints at the projecting corners and are glued and nailed in area, as is the utilized shell on the entrance. Each and every of the primary foot blocks underneath the rear toes is held in spot with 4 massive rosehead nails established into countersunk holes.
Elements: Cherry front rail, side rails, higher rail facings, used moldings, used shell, legs, and foot blocks (by microanalysis) beech rear rail and medial braces (by microanalysis) marble major.
Mark(s): None.
Inscription(s): None.
Label:
William Buckland (1734-1774), an English-skilled builder active in eastern Virginia and Maryland during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, was responsible for some of the colonial Chesapeake’s most aspiring architectural productions and cupboard wares. Between the latter is this cherry sideboard desk created for the duration of the 1760s for the Tayloe household of Mount Ethereal in Richmond County, Virginia. With its completely carved console legs, gadrooned rails, and marble leading, this remarkably perfectly-preserved item illustrates both of those Buckland’s substantial inventive eyesight and the talent of his employees. It also alludes to Buckland’s penchant for aesthetically integrated architectural schemes.
Born in Oxfordshire, Buckland was apprenticed in 1748 to his uncle, London joiner James Buckland. The younger artisan done his instruction in 1755 and soon signed an indenture with Virginian Thomson Mason. In return for passage to The united states and a modest annual salary, Buckland would provide Mason or his agent for four several years “in the Work of a Carpenter &. Joiner.” In point, Mason had secured Buckland’s products and services on behalf of his older brother, George (1725-1792), a climbing Fairfax County planter and politician. Then in the midst of constructing Gunston Hall, a brick house on the Potomac River, the elder Mason expected the expert services of a skilled carver and joiner. Like 1000’s of other British artisans, Buckland undoubtedly recognized the indenture hoping to uncover better vocation options in the colonies.
When Buckland arrived in Virginia, the masonry shell of Gunston Corridor was seemingly entire and completely ready for its joined components. Buckland and his crew created and executed woodwork that was shockingly elaborate and uncommon for its time and place. They additional a porch in the form of an engaged octagon carefully resembling a Gothic back garden temple in William Pain’s BUILDER’S COMPANION AND WORKMAN’S General ASSISTAN (1758). This whimsical portico with Gothic arches and a now missing decorative finial has no recognised parallels in modern American operate. Buckland created similarly fascinating areas inside the household, like a templelike central passage with a distinguished Doric entablature supported by twelve fluted pilasters. In the parlor, the artisans set up woodwork that blends classical and naturalistic carved ornament with Palladian symmetry. The eating home was executed in the exotic Chinese flavor, complete with pagodalike moldings on door and window surrounds. 1 can only picture the surprised reactions of Mason’s attendees on their to start with perspective of his singular new house.
Buckland’s perform at Gunston Corridor was practically total by 1759 when Mason endorsed the back of the Englishman’s indenture with a hugely complimentary advice, contacting him “a total Master of the Carpenter’s &. Joiners Organization both equally in Theory &. Follow.” Two a long time later on, the artisan moved his crew to Richmond County on the lower Rappahannock River wherever he evidently was commissioned to total the interior woodwork of Mount Ethereal, the “stylish Seat” of John (1721-1779) and Rebecca Plater Tayloe.
Built of dressed stone, Mount Ethereal even now stands on a hill overlooking the river regrettably, most of its first inside woodwork was dropped in a fire in 1844. Surviving cornice fragments leave no question that the joined perform was built and carved by the same fingers that generated the exuberant woodwork at Gunston Hall. These richly adorned fragments also hint at the character of Buckland’s fittings. Tutor Philip Fithian was amazed by a go to to Mount Ethereal in 1774 and took the time to file his observations. He observed that the home had been “concluded curiously,” most likely alluding to fanciful woodwork like that in the Palladian and Chinese rooms at Gunston Hall.
Owning invested a ten years in Richmond County, Buckland and some of his workers moved in 1771 to Annapolis, Maryland, wherever they ended up commissioned to entire the inside of a household started by Samuel Chase. Now styling himself an architect, Buckland later on worked on various other projects in Maryland together with the hugely regarded exterior of the Hammond-Harwood property, also in Annapolis. Buckland died quickly in 1774 at the age of 30-9.
While none of Buckland’s interiors endure with their authentic furnishings intact, there is evidence that he followed the guide of British baroque architects like William Kent (1684-1748) in planning furniture whose ornament was coordinated with the architectural spaces for which it was supposed. The first indication of that follow is from Gunston Hall. Amid the couple surviving pieces of Mason furnishings is a fragmentary facet chair, element of a bigger set manufactured by the Buckland shop. Centered on a Chinese-motivated style in the 1st and 2nd editions of Chippendale’s Director, the Mason chair and its mates must have been intended for use in the Chinese eating place there.
Related proof survives from Mount Airy where by most of the floor flooring furnishings ended up saved from the hearth, among them this exceptional sideboard desk and another excellent illustration, both clearly designed in the Buckland shop. In phrases of its ambition and execution, just about every is strongly reminiscent of the woodwork at Gunston Hall. For occasion, the carved console legs on the CWF desk have broad-leafed bellflowers intertwined with prominent volutes that are centered by carved rosettes. The volutes lengthen down the sides of the legs to sort elevated borders that terminate in voluted toes with matching rosettes. This ornament closely follows that on the corbelled keystones that surmount the crafted-in bowfats in the Palladian parlor at Gunston Corridor. The styles for both jobs have been probably tailored from plate LII in Abraham Swan, THE BRITISH ARCHITECT (1745), a duplicate of which Buckland owned. The 2nd Mount Ethereal desk, now at MESDA, is also similar to the shop’s previously work. Based mostly on plate XXXVIII in the 1st and next editions of Chippendale’s DIRECTOR, it is ornamented with carved rope moldings, an egg-and-dart “cornice,” and an utilized fretwork of interlocking circles, all of which duplicate aspects utilized by Buckland in the parlor at Gunston Hall.
The parallels among the Mount Ethereal tables and the Gunston Hall woodwork are significant. As home furnishings historian Luke Beckerdite has noticed, “The architectonic sort of these tables and their carved particulars advise that Buckland created them to complement the interior woodwork” at Mount Ethereal. Without a doubt, the egg-and-dart carving on the next desk is pretty related to that on the surviving cornice fragments from just one of the principal rooms in the Tayloe residence.
Even though the layouts for the tables were being nearly unquestionably selected and tailored by Buckland in his function as master of the shop, the carving was likely finished by William Bernard Sears (d. 1818), a British-born artisan who also labored with Buckland at Gunston Corridor. Because of its idiosyncrasies, Sears’s carving is easily distinguished from that of other artisans. For case in point, Sears’s foliage was carved with unusual, lancet-formed eyes, and he frequently utilised pairs of short, parallel flutes to suggest shading on flat surfaces. Sears’s perform normally was attained with several more cuts than essential, suggesting that he was fairly uncertain of his course. The financial system of motion involved with a lot more sophisticated city carving is lacking.
The uncommon character of Sears’s model indicates that he may well not have done his coaching in advance of coming to America. It is possible that Sears’s distinctive tactic displays his skills as a carver-gilder. Sears’s association with that trade is documented by a commission he obtained in 1772 just after leaving Buckland’s work to carve and gild the woodwork for Pohick Church in Fairfax County. The ornate interior, which was ruined by Union troops in the course of the Civil War, provided gilt ornaments established inside big tabernacle frames and a palm branch with corresponding material for a pulpit that was surmounted by a carved and gilded dove. A lot of gilt artifacts show expediency in their carved ornamentation, and Sears’s free design and style may well mirror this diverse solution.
When Buckland designed the architectural fittings and furniture and Sears carved them, substantially of the real assembly was likely accomplished by the shop’s dwelling joiners, who seemed to have been unfamiliar with common cabinetmaking practices. That observation is borne out by all of the furnishings attributed to Buckland, which includes the CWF desk, which was manufactured with coarse thick leg inventory of the size normally utilized for joists and studs. The mortise-and-tenon joints at the legs and rails are crudely cut and secured with wood pins far much larger than normal, though the a few medial braces are set into about sawn angled mortises. The rail moldings and central shell are not only glued in area but also secured with exposed ending nails that would have been fairly clear when new. The deep rabbets that support the marble best were being slice into the body after assembly, so invading and to some extent compromising the joinery, although the blocks nailed to the bottoms of the foot plinths are plainly an afterthought applied to right the height of the table.
Distinguished by several stylistic and structural idiosyncrasies, Buckland’s home furnishings and architectural interiors are beneficial reminders of the superior degree of conversation between artisans for the duration of the colonial period. The CWF desk is an case in point of how the talents of designer, carver, and joiner put together to generate a form meant to interact aesthetically with its architectural location. The substantial carving and popular baroque styling definitely characterize a regional exception to the prevailing neat and simple style. On the other hand, the cultural ties to Wonderful Britain noticed in the design and development of the table by immigrant labor replicate the common Chesapeake sample.
Provenance:
The table was manufactured for John (1721-1779) and Rebecca Plater Tayloe of Mount Ethereal plantation in Richmond Co., Va. It descended to their son, John Tayloe III (1771-1828), and his spouse, Ann Ogle to their son, William Henry Tayloe (1799-1871), and his wife, Henrietta Ogle to their son, Henry Augustine Tayloe (1836-1908), and his wife, Courtenay Norton Chinn to their son, Henry Gwynne Tayloe (1874-1961), and his wife, Grace Lemmon to their son, Henry Gwynne Tayloe, Jr. (1912-1988) and to his wife, Polly Montague Tayloe, from whom it was acquired by CWF in 1993.”
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Posted by Christine G. H. Franck on 2012-01-23 01:23:33
Tagged: , Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum
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