R E A D I N G S

There are no required texts for this course, but the following are strongly recommended additions to your reference library:

     Greene, P. Jeffrey.  American Furniture of the 18th Century: History, Technique & Structure. Newton, CT: The Taunton Press, 1996.

     Hoadley, Bruce. Identifying Wood. Newton, CT: Taunton Press, 1990.

     Krill, Rosemary T. Early American Decorative Arts, 1620-1860: A Handbook for Interpreters. Revised ed. Wilmington, De.: 
     The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 2010.

Week 1 Introduction I.: forms, materials, processing

• Adam Bowett, Woods in British Furniture-making, 1400-1900: an Illustrated Historical Dictionary, "Introduction," pp. xxv-xxxiii.
• Benno Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630-1730. Ch. 2 "The Woods Used in American Furniture," pp. 19-25. 
• Jack Holden, H. Pat Bacot, Cybele Gontar, et al., Ch. 2 "The Cabinet Woods of Louisiana," in Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835,  pp. 19-29.
• Charles van Ravenswaay, "Historical Checklist of the Pines of Eastern North America," Winterthur Portfolio 7 (1972): 175-215.  JSTOR
• Bruce Hoadley, Identifying Wood, pp. xiii-13.

Optional:

• Albert Myers Cook, ed.  Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707, "The Present State of the Colony of West Jersey" (1681), pp. 187-193; "A Further Account of the Province of Pennsilvania (sic) by William Penn" (1685), pp. 264-265.

Week 2 Introduction II.: construction I. & II. 

• Jeffrey Green, American Furniture of the 18th Century: History, Technique & Structure, Ch. 1-2, pp. 6-32.
• David Pye, The Nature and Art of Workmanship, pp. 4-9, 71-82.
• Bowett, English Furniture, Ch. 1; skim Ch. 2-3
• Charles F. Hummel, With Hammer in Hand, The Dominy Craftsmen of East Hampton, New York, pp. 3-16, 32-40. 
• Print these scans from Victor Chinnery and Jeffrey Greene and bring with you.

Week 3 Early Settlement in Colonial America I.: Precedents

• J. H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain & Spain in America, 1492-1830, Ch. 8, "Empire and Identity", pp. 220-251.
• Lonn Taylor & Dessa Bokides, New Mexican Furniture, 1600-1940, Ch. 1 "The Hispanic Tradition," pp. 3-27, plus skim illustrations.
• Victory Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition: A History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England, pp. 41-64; 499-516.
• Donald Blake Webster, Rococo to Rustique: Early French-Canadian Furniture in the Royal Ontario Museum, pp. 1-32, plus skim cat. entries.
• Reinier Baarsen, "The Oak Tradition," in Furniture in Holland's Golden Age, pp. 21-59. 
• Hans Beeftink, "Socio-cultural Aspects of the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century," Proceedings of Conference the Association of Professional Conservators, "Dutch Furniture of the Seventeenth Century" (Oct. 12, 1994): 3-10. 
• Adam Bowett, "The Engravings of Daniel Marot," Furniture History 47 (2003): 85-100. 

Week 4  FIELD TRIP

• Benno Forman, "The Chest of Drawers in America, 1635-1730: The Origins of the Joined Chest of Drawers," Winterthur Portfolio 20:1 (Spring 1985), 1-30.  
• Benno Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630-1730: "Seating Furniture Made by Turners," (pp. 65-89, skim through cat. entries), "Seating Furniture Made by Joiners," (pp. 133-147, skim cat. entries), and "Carved Topp'd, Plain Topp'd, and Crook'd-Back Leather Chairs," (pp. 281-303, and skim through cat. entries).

Week 5 Early settlement in colonial America II.: Regions 

• Ronald L. Hurst & Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680-1730: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection, Ch. 1 "The People & Places," pp. 13-46. 
• Brayden Hyde, Bermuda's Antique Furniture and Silver, pp. 15-114. Skim illustrations.
• Jack Lindsey, Worldly Goods, pp. 1-33.
• Roderick H. Blackburn & Ruth Piwonka, Remembrance of Patria: Dutch Arts & Culture in Colonial America, 1609-1776, "Dutch Cupboard and Dutch Decorative Painting," pp. 257-273.
• Dean Failey, Long Island is My Nation,  "Meeting Ground of Cultures, 1640-1730," pp. 11-47.
• Jonathan L. Fairbanks, Robert F. Trent, New England Begins, vol. 3, "New England Joinery and Turning Before 1700,"  pp. 501-555.

Optional:

• Luke Beckerdite, "Religion, Artisanry, and Cultural Identity: The Huguenot Experience in South Carolina, 1680–1725," American Furniture (1997).
• Robert A. Leath, "Dutch Trade and Its Influence on Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Furniture," American Furniture (1997).

**Week 6 Paper topic due  / 1680-1730: Luxury and exoticism: cultural influences of Asia

• Bowett, English Furniture, 1660-1714: From Charles II to Queen Anne, Ch. 5, and review Ch. 1, particularly illustrations.
• David Dewing, "Cane Chairs, Their Manufacture and Use in London, 1670-1730," Regional Furniture 22 (2008): 53-83.
• Morrison H. Heckscher and Frances Gruber Safford, "Boston Japanned Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," Magazine Antiques 129, no. 5 (May 1986): 1046-1051.
• David van Gompel, Furniture from the Netherlands East Indies, 1600-1900: A Historical Perspective based on the Collection of the Tropenmuseum, "17th Century: The Age of Expansion and Settlement," pp. 25-46. Peruse illustrations at the rear of the book.
• Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne & Chippendale Periods: review cat. nos. 242-248; 

Week 7 1730-1780: Cultural localisms and craft traditions

• Joshua Lane and Donald P. White III, "Fashioning Furniture and Framing Community: Woodworkers and the Rise of Connecticut River Valley Town," American Furniture (2005).
• Philip Zea, "Diversity and Regionalism in Rural New England Furniture," American Furniture (1995).
• Wendy Cooper and Lisa Minardi, Paint, Pattern & People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725-1850, Ch. 2 "Places: Regional Forms and Local Expressions," pp. 70-108 (this is only part of the chapter).
•  Robert Mussey and Anne Rogers Haley, "John Cogswell and Boston Bombé Furniture: Thirty-Five Years of Revolution in Politics and Design," American Furniture (1994).
• Charles Parsons, The Dunlap Cabinetmakers, Ch. 1 "The Dunlap Cabinetmakers," pp. 1-21, flip through illustrations.

Week 8 Spreading settlement & new immigrants, 1730-1780: 
Guest Lecturer:  A. Nicholas Powers, Curator of Collections, Museum of Shenandoah Valley

• Warren Hofstra, "Settling the Shenandoah," in The Planting of New Virginia, pp. 94-142.
• June Lucas, "Paint-Decorated Furniture from the Piedmont of North Carolina," American Furniture (2009), pp. 
• Ronald L. Hurst and Jonathan Prown, Southern Furniture, 1680-1830. Flip through cat. entries re: tables and case pieces.

Week 9 Print culture, 1730-1780

• Thomas Chippendale, The gentleman and cabinet-maker's director: being a large collection of the most elegant and useful designs of household furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and modern taste (1754).
  
• Batty Langley, The city and country builder's and workman's treasury of designs, or, The art of drawing and working the ornamental parts of architecture (1756).
• Morrison H. Heckscher, "English Pattern Books in Eighteenth-Century America," American Furniture (1994).
• Gail S. Davidson, "Ornament of Bizarre Imagination: Rococo Prints and Drawings from Cooper-Hewitt's Leon Decloux Collection," in Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008. 
• Morrison Heckscher & Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775, pp. 1-17, 133-217.

Week 10 Regional interpretations of new fashions, 1730-1780

• Robert Leath, "Robert and William Walker and the "Ne Plus Ultra": Scottish Design and Colonial Virginia Furniture," American Furniture (2006), pp. 
• John Bivins, "Rhode Island Influence on the Work of Two North Carolina Cabinetmakers," American Furniture (1999).
• Ronald L. Hurst, "Irish Influences on Furniture in the Rappahannock RIver Basin," American Furniture (1997).
• Luke Beckerdite, "Immigrant Carvers and the Development of the Rococo Style in New York," American Furniture (1996) 

Week 11 Classical Influences I.: The New Republic, 1780-1820

• Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine, Recueil de décorations intérieures... vol. 1 (1801); vol. 2 (1801); vol. 3 (1801). Skim illustrations only.
• William Pain, Pain's British Palladio or The Builder's General Assistant (1788). Skim illustrations only.
• Wendy A. Cooper, The Classical Taste in America, 1800-1840, Ch. 3 "From the Stores of Antiquity," pp. 102-188.
• Brock Jobe and Clark Pearce, "Sophistication in Rural Massachusetts: The Inlaid Cherry Furniture of Nathan Lombard," American Furniture (1998).
• Robert D. Mussey, Ch. 3 "The Seymours in Boston, Tradition and Early Changes," in The Masterworks of John & Thomas Seymour, pp. 28-50.
• Alison Boor et. al, Philadelphia Empire, Ch. 1, pp. 1-53.

Week 12 Classical Influences II. Colonialism and New Settlement: 1780-1820

• Francis J. Puig, Ch. 10 "The Early Furniture of the Mississippi River Valley, 1760-1820," in The American Craftsman and the European Tradition, pp. 152-178.
• Holden, Bacot, Gontar, et. al, Furnishing Louisiana, Ch. 6 "Inside the Louisiana Home," pp. 79-93; flip through cat. entries on casework.

**Week 13 Paper due in class / Classical Taste in the Gulf South: 1820 and later

• Holden, Bacot, Gontar, et. al, Furnishing Louisiana, Ch. 7 "Furniture Importation at the Port of New Orleans," pp. 97-119.
• Stephen G. Harrison, “The Nineteenth-century Furniture Trade in New Orleans.”  The Magazine Antiques 76, no. 5 (May 1997): 749-759.
• Paul M. Haygood and Matthew A. Thurlow. “New York Furniture for the Stirlings of Wakefield, Saint Francisville, Louisiana.” The Magazine Antiques 86, no. 5 (May 2007): 126-135.
• St. Louis Art Museum, "The Furniture of Isaac Vose," Bulletin (St. Louis Art Museum), n. p. 

Week 14 Final exam
No readings!