Notes
With a design derived from a pattern illustrated by Thomas Sheraton in Cabinet Dictionary (London, 1803), this sophisticated sofa represents the “Grecian” taste as interpreted in Salem during the Federal period.1
The exceptional carving stems from the acclaimed shop tradition established by Samuel McIntire (1757-1811), the Salem architect who was responsible for the designs of a number of the finest Federal houses in Salem as well as their architectural carving and furniture. The motifs displayed on this sofa – including the bowknot, bunches of grapes and star-punched ground -- are hallmarks of his work. Closely related clusters of grapes and grape leaves descending from a bowknot are found on seating furniture attributed to McIntire, including a set of shield-back sidechairs and a sofa in the Karolik Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston originally owned by Elias Hasket Derby and a set of oval-back chairs owned by his daughter, Elizabeth Derby West.2 These motifs also appear on a set of seating furniture represented by two matching sofas and four window stools made for the parlor of the Peirce-Nichols House in Salem, which was remodeled by Samuel McIntire in 1801 at the time of the marriage of Jerathmiel Peirce’s daughter to George Nichols.
This sofa survives as one of only four extant examples of its form with carving attributed to the McIntire shop tradition. One at Winterthur Museum is illustrated by Dean T. Lahikainen in Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style (Peabody Essex Museum, 2007, figure 4-140 on p. 162). One is in the collection of Historic Deerfield (92.14) and illustrated in The Magazine Antiques (December 1930): fig. 10, p. 502. Another in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum (70.85.1) was formerly owned by Israel Sack, Inc. and illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Volume II, no. 1053, p. 417.
Closely related carving on a star-punched ground likely carved by the same hand as this sofa is found on several pairs of bellows attributed to Samuel McIntire’s son, Samuel Field McIntire (1780-1819). He worked closely alongside his father and continued in the business after the elder McIntire’s death in 1811. One pair of bellows is in the collection of Winterthur Museum while two other examples are in private collections. Three of the aforementioned examples are illustrated by Lahikainen in Samuel McIntire as figs. 4-33, 4-144, and 4-168, pp. 119, 164 and 174. Another pair with carving by Samuel Field McIntire was in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph K. Ott and sold at Christie’s, January 20, 2012, sale 2635, lot 144.