“Sideboard desk
1761-1771
Artist/Maker: Shop of William Buckland
Artist/Maker: William Bernard Sears
Origin: America, Virginia, Richmond County
OH: 32″ OW: 45 3/8″ OD: 31 1/4”.
Cherry (by microanalysis), beech (by microanalysis), and marble.
Museum Acquire
Acc. No. 1993-64
Visual appeal: rectangular sideboard desk on 4 projecting, canted legs in the sort of architectural consoles with scrolled ft on blocks the sides of just about every leg are carved with a huge volute and an prolonged, entire 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 facet rails are trimmed with a big gadroon molding at the higher edge and rope molding at the decrease edge the entrance rails facilities a significant shell flanked by voluted acanthus leaves the rectangular marble top rated is set within the rails and bordered by cherry going through strips.
Development: The rails are tenoned into the legs and fixed with big pins. A few medial braces are open-dovetailed into the entrance and rear rails. The marble slab rests on these braces and matches into rabbets minimize into the front and rear rails. Cherry facings are glued and nailed to the tops of the entrance and side rails to enframe the marble. The moldings on the entrance and side rails have sophisticated miter joints at the projecting corners and are glued and nailed in place, as is the utilized shell on the entrance. Just about every of the unique foot blocks under the rear ft is held in position with 4 large rosehead nails set into countersunk holes.
Resources: Cherry entrance rail, side rails, upper rail facings, utilized moldings, applied shell, legs, and foot blocks (by microanalysis) beech rear rail and medial braces (by microanalysis) marble top.
Mark(s): None.
Inscription(s): None.
Label:
William Buckland (1734-1774), an English-educated builder lively in jap Virginia and Maryland through the 3rd quarter of the eighteenth century, was dependable for some of the colonial Chesapeake’s most aspiring architectural productions and cupboard wares. Amid the latter is this cherry sideboard table built throughout the 1760s for the Tayloe family members of Mount Airy in Richmond County, Virginia. With its totally carved console legs, gadrooned rails, and marble prime, this remarkably very well-preserved item illustrates the two Buckland’s sizeable artistic vision and the skill of his workers. It also alludes to Buckland’s penchant for aesthetically integrated architectural strategies.
Born in Oxfordshire, Buckland was apprenticed in 1748 to his uncle, London joiner James Buckland. The young artisan finished his teaching in 1755 and quickly signed an indenture with Virginian Thomson Mason. In return for passage to America and a modest once-a-year income, Buckland would provide Mason or his agent for 4 years “in the Employment of a Carpenter &. Joiner.” In reality, Mason had secured Buckland’s expert services on behalf of his more mature brother, George (1725-1792), a mounting Fairfax County planter and politician. Then in the midst of building Gunston Hall, a brick house on the Potomac River, the elder Mason demanded the providers of a proficient carver and joiner. Like countless numbers of other British artisans, Buckland definitely acknowledged the indenture hoping to locate much better profession chances in the colonies.
When Buckland arrived in Virginia, the masonry shell of Gunston Corridor was evidently comprehensive and completely ready for its joined elements. Buckland and his crew created and executed woodwork that was shockingly elaborate and unusual for its time and area. They added a porch in the sort of an engaged octagon carefully resembling a Gothic back garden temple in William Pain’s BUILDER’S COMPANION AND WORKMAN’S Typical ASSISTAN (1758). This whimsical portico with Gothic arches and a now missing ornamental finial has no recognised parallels in up to date American get the job done. Buckland produced equally exciting spaces inside the property, which includes a templelike central passage with a outstanding Doric entablature supported by twelve fluted pilasters. In the parlor, the artisans put in woodwork that blends classical and naturalistic carved ornament with Palladian symmetry. The dining home was executed in the exotic Chinese style, complete with pagodalike moldings on doorway and window surrounds. One particular can only visualize the surprised reactions of Mason’s guests on their initially check out of his singular new residence.
Buckland’s get the job done at Gunston Corridor was nearly entire by 1759 when Mason endorsed the back of the Englishman’s indenture with a extremely complimentary advice, contacting him “a entire Learn of the Carpenter’s &. Joiners Organization both equally in Idea &. Exercise.” Two yrs later on, the artisan moved his crew to Richmond County on the decrease Rappahannock River where by he evidently was commissioned to comprehensive the inside woodwork of Mount Airy, the “sophisticated Seat” of John (1721-1779) and Rebecca Plater Tayloe.
Constructed of dressed stone, Mount Ethereal however stands on a hill overlooking the river sadly, most of its original interior woodwork was shed in a fire in 1844. Surviving cornice fragments depart no question that the joined function was designed and carved by the identical hands that made the exuberant woodwork at Gunston Corridor. These richly decorated fragments also hint at the character of Buckland’s fittings. Tutor Philip Fithian was amazed by a stop by to Mount Airy in 1774 and took the time to file his observations. He famous that the home experienced been “completed curiously,” possibly alluding to fanciful woodwork like that in the Palladian and Chinese rooms at Gunston Hall.
Owning used a 10 years in Richmond County, Buckland and some of his employees moved in 1771 to Annapolis, Maryland, where by they were commissioned to complete the inside of a property started by Samuel Chase. Now styling himself an architect, Buckland afterwards labored on many other jobs in Maryland such as the extremely regarded exterior of the Hammond-Harwood residence, also in Annapolis. Buckland died all of a sudden in 1774 at the age of thirty-nine.
Whilst none of Buckland’s interiors endure with their primary furnishings intact, there is proof that he adopted the guide of British baroque architects like William Kent (1684-1748) in coming up with home furniture whose ornament was coordinated with the architectural spaces for which it was meant. The to start with indication of that exercise is from Gunston Hall. Among the couple surviving pieces of Mason furniture is a fragmentary facet chair, section of a bigger established generated by the Buckland shop. Centered on a Chinese-influenced design and style in the initial and next editions of Chippendale’s Director, the Mason chair and its mates ought to have been meant for use in the Chinese dining space there.
Very similar evidence survives from Mount Ethereal where most of the ground flooring furnishings ended up saved from the hearth, between them this amazing sideboard desk and an additional fantastic instance, each evidently created in the Buckland store. In phrases of its ambition and execution, each and every is strongly reminiscent of the woodwork at Gunston Hall. For instance, the carved console legs on the CWF table have broad-leafed bellflowers intertwined with notable volutes that are centered by carved rosettes. The volutes increase down the sides of the legs to form raised borders that terminate in voluted ft with matching rosettes. This ornament intently follows that on the corbelled keystones that surmount the designed-in bowfats in the Palladian parlor at Gunston Corridor. The types for both of those jobs have been probable adapted from plate LII in Abraham Swan, THE BRITISH ARCHITECT (1745), a copy of which Buckland owned. The second Mount Ethereal table, now at MESDA, is also similar to the shop’s before do the job. Based on plate XXXVIII in the initially and second editions of Chippendale’s DIRECTOR, it is ornamented with carved rope moldings, an egg-and-dart “cornice,” and an applied fretwork of interlocking circles, all of which duplicate features made use of by Buckland in the parlor at Gunston Hall.
The parallels among the Mount Airy tables and the Gunston Corridor woodwork are considerable. As household furniture historian Luke Beckerdite has noticed, “The architectonic form of these tables and their carved information suggest that Buckland intended them to complement the inside woodwork” at Mount Ethereal. In truth, the egg-and-dart carving on the second table is incredibly very similar to that on the surviving cornice fragments from 1 of the principal rooms in the Tayloe residence.
While the patterns for the tables were being almost certainly selected and adapted by Buckland in his purpose as learn of the shop, the carving was possible accomplished by William Bernard Sears (d. 1818), a British-born artisan who also worked with Buckland at Gunston Corridor. For the reason that of its idiosyncrasies, Sears’s carving is easily distinguished from that of other artisans. For instance, Sears’s foliage was carved with abnormal, lancet-shaped eyes, and he typically applied pairs of brief, parallel flutes to advise shading on flat surfaces. Sears’s function normally was attained with numerous more cuts than essential, suggesting that he was considerably uncertain of his course. The economic system of motion connected with additional advanced urban carving is lacking.
The uncommon nature of Sears’s model implies that he may perhaps not have accomplished his coaching ahead of coming to The united states. It is probable that Sears’s distinctive approach displays his abilities as a carver-gilder. Sears’s association with that trade is documented by a commission he gained in 1772 immediately after leaving Buckland’s work to carve and gild the woodwork for Pohick Church in Fairfax County. The ornate interior, which was wrecked by Union troops for the duration of the Civil War, integrated gilt ornaments set in big tabernacle frames and a palm branch with corresponding drapery for a pulpit that was surmounted by a carved and gilded dove. Lots of gilt artifacts show expediency in their carved ornamentation, and Sears’s unfastened design and style could replicate this diverse approach.
Although Buckland designed the architectural fittings and household furniture and Sears carved them, much of the genuine assembly was most likely carried out by the shop’s dwelling joiners, who seemed to have been unfamiliar with conventional cabinetmaking techniques. That observation is borne out by all of the home furnishings attributed to Buckland, together with the CWF desk, which was manufactured with coarse thick leg stock of the sizing commonly applied for joists and studs. The mortise-and-tenon joints at the legs and rails are crudely lower and secured with wooden pins far larger sized than usual, even though the a few medial braces are established into around sawn angled mortises. The rail moldings and central shell are not only glued in spot but also secured with uncovered ending nails that would have been very apparent when new. The deep rabbets that support the marble top ended up slice into the frame just after assembly, thus invading and to some extent compromising the joinery, whilst the blocks nailed to the bottoms of the foot plinths are clearly an afterthought utilized to proper the top of the table.
Distinguished by a lot of stylistic and structural idiosyncrasies, Buckland’s home furniture and architectural interiors are important reminders of the large degree of interaction amongst artisans in the course of the colonial period of time. The CWF table is an illustration of how the abilities of designer, carver, and joiner blended to deliver a kind intended to interact aesthetically with its architectural setting. The in depth carving and prominent baroque styling undoubtedly symbolize a regional exception to the prevailing neat and basic flavor. On the other hand, the cultural ties to Wonderful Britain viewed in the style and construction of the desk by immigrant labor reflect the widespread Chesapeake sample.
Provenance:
The desk was made 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 wife, 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 spouse, Grace Lemmon to their son, Henry Gwynne Tayloe, Jr. (1912-1988) and to his spouse, Polly Montague Tayloe, from whom it was acquired by CWF in 1993.”
From: emuseum.heritage.org/code/emuseum.asp?action=newpage&c…
Posted by Christine G. H. Franck on 2012-01-23 01:24:57
Tagged: , Dewitt Wallace Attractive Arts Museum
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