Title
Slant-front Desk
Object Type
Creator
Date
1765-1795
Description
In two parts, the upper part with a molded cornice. An urn form finial carved with a stylized acorn is at the cornice center. The upper part has a deep drawer with a pair of shallow drawers below, all above three thumb-molded and graduated long drawers; the lower section has a frieze drawer above three short drawers. A scalloped apron is carved at the center with a shell form device. Cabriole legs, pad feet. Roman numerals carved in inside of lower back panel and on left interior side of the frieze drawer.
Notes
This mahogany slant-front desk is identified with John Townsend because of its line of descent in his family from his daughter Mrs. Thomas Brinley (née Mary Townsend 1769-1856) to her nephew Christopher Townsend (1807-1881) then to his sister Ellen F. Townsend (1809-1887). Ellen Townsend would bequeath the desk to family friend William P. Sheffield (1819-1907); by descent to his son William P. Sheffield (1857-1919) to his son Samuel S. Sheffield and then purchase from Samuel Sheffield by the Newport Restoration Foundation in 1969.
Morrison Heckscher notes the larger scale of the desk being 42 inches rather than the usual 40 inches or less, and the use of the finest mahogany to suggest the piece was made for a member of the Townsend family (John Townsend Newport Cabinetmaker New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, pp. 136-137). Also, written in chalk on the reverse of the desk in eighteenth-century script is a flowing, yet unfortunately undecipherable monogram, probably that of John Townsend.
Published references:
The Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery (http://rifa.art.yale.edu/), RIF607
"Cincinnati Art Museum Holds Loan Exhibition of Furniture: English and American Pieces from Sixty Local Collections Coverts Two and a Half Centuries," American Collector (June 1937): 11, ill.
Homer Eaton Keyes, "Two Branches of the Newport Townsends," Antiques 31, no. 6 (June 1937): 309, fig. 4.
Richmond Huntley, "An Antiques Primer: The Evolution of the Desk, Part II," American Collector 10, no.1 (February 1941): 11.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 172, fig. 3.95, 3.95a.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 136–37, no. 30, ill.
Morrison H. Heckscher, "Newport and the Townsend Inheritance," Antiques 167, no. 5 (May 2005): 103, ill.
Morrison Heckscher notes the larger scale of the desk being 42 inches rather than the usual 40 inches or less, and the use of the finest mahogany to suggest the piece was made for a member of the Townsend family (John Townsend Newport Cabinetmaker New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, pp. 136-137). Also, written in chalk on the reverse of the desk in eighteenth-century script is a flowing, yet unfortunately undecipherable monogram, probably that of John Townsend.
Published references:
The Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery (http://rifa.art.yale.edu/), RIF607
"Cincinnati Art Museum Holds Loan Exhibition of Furniture: English and American Pieces from Sixty Local Collections Coverts Two and a Half Centuries," American Collector (June 1937): 11, ill.
Homer Eaton Keyes, "Two Branches of the Newport Townsends," Antiques 31, no. 6 (June 1937): 309, fig. 4.
Richmond Huntley, "An Antiques Primer: The Evolution of the Desk, Part II," American Collector 10, no.1 (February 1941): 11.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 172, fig. 3.95, 3.95a.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 136–37, no. 30, ill.
Morrison H. Heckscher, "Newport and the Townsend Inheritance," Antiques 167, no. 5 (May 2005): 103, ill.
Cultural Origin
American, Rhode Island
Medium
mahogany, brass, secondary woods: cherry, pine, yellow poplar, maple
Extent
Overall: 42 1/2 x 42 1/8 x 23 7/8 in. (108 x 107 x 60.6 cm)
Collection
Source
John Townsend (1732-1809), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his daughter Mrs. Thomas Brinley (née Mary Townsend, 1769-1809), Newport, 1809; by descent to her nephew and heir, Christopher Townsend (died 1881), Newport, 1856; by descent to his sister Ellen F. Townsend (1809-1887), Newport, 1881; bequeathed by her to her friend, William P.Sheffield (1819-1907), Newport, 1886; by descent to his son, William P. Sheffield (1857-1919), Newport; by descent to his son, Samuel S. Sheffield, Cincinnati, Ohio; purchased by Doris Duke (1912-1993) from Samuel S. Sheffield, December 11, 1969, for Newport Restoration Foundation; Whitehorne House Museum, Newport Restoration Foundation, from 1974
Identifier
2001.7
For more information about this item, please contact its owning institution.