Philadelphia furniture in the empire style

Furniture made in Philadelphia between 1810 and 1840 incorporated an international and multifaceted interpretation of classicism that alluded to all the great ancient Western cultures--Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Designers embraced the volumetric forms of ancient stone sculpture and architecture, and, in some cases, actual ancient furniture and decorative elements inspired furniture design in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the United States during this final phase of the revival of classical art and architecture. Furniture of this period is often referred to today as Empire, recalling the term used to describe the official artistic and decorative rhetoric of Napoleon Bonaparte (r. 1804-1815). Napoleon's desire to embrace the empire over the republic, and thus Rome over Greece, began what became a widespread adoption of the bolder forms of classical art and decoration that the architects and designers Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre Francois Leonard Fontaine (1762-1853) created for him. Napoleon's Empire style--intently copied by both his strongest allies and his fiercest enemies--was an original and flamboyant mixture of decorative elements that associated his takeovers of European lands with that of the great conquering Roman Empire. By 1810 American cabinetmakers, upholsterers, and patrons had adopted the forms, symbols, dimensions, architectural elements, and variety of decorative finishes and techniques applied to furniture, not only by French designers such as Percier and Fontaine and Pierre de La Mesangere but also by the Englishmen Thomas Hope, Charles Heathcote Tatham, George Smith, Rudolph Ackermann, and others. (1) In Philadelphia, the large and bustling community of furniture craftsmen, who hailed from numerous ports and diverse backgrounds, created their own distinctive interpretation of Empire furniture designs for patrons whose eagerness to adopt the new style corresponded with the ambitious architectural campaigns then being carried out in the city, (2) and where during the same period scientific pursuit and arts education were thriving, exemplified by the establishment of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1805) and the Academy of Natural Sciences (1812).

The Irish-born cabinetmaker Joseph B. Barry operated one of the principal cabinetmaking shops in Philadelphia during the first four decades of the nineteenth century. He arrived in Philadelphia about 1790 and became the partner first of Alexander Calder in 1794 and then of Lewis G. Affleck (w. 1794-1798) in 1795, before establishing his own business by 1797. Barry's documented work is marked both by his strong assimilation of the latest European design principles and by construction of the highest quality. Brief forays into Savannah in 1798 and Baltimore in 1803 and 1804 increased the market for his interpretation of early classicism and provided networks through which he sold furniture throughout his career. Barry is credited with the earliest adoption of the Egyptian and Gothic revival styles by an American cabinetmaker, advertising in the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser on January 19, 1810, that Joseph B. Barry and Son had "in their ware-rooms a variety of the newest and most fashionable Cabinet Furniture, superbly finished in the rich Egyptian and Gothic style, which they will dispose of on the most reasonable terms." While this furniture may have been a combination of imported and locally made, a cabinetmaker like Barry was always conscious of the advantage his familiarity with the latest designs lent to his work. Indefatigable, Barry also traveled to Europe twice, in 1811 and 1819, seeking inspiration and firsthand knowledge of new furniture designs, and also to acquire an inventory of European-made furniture to sell from his own shop. Shortly after his return from his first trip, he advertised in the Aurora General Advertiser on January 12, 1812, that he had "lately returned from ... London and Paris [where] he made some selections of the Most Fashionable and Elegant Articles ... well worth the attention of the respectable citizens of Philadelphia." Ultimately, he and other Philadelphia cabinetmakers endeavored to make pieces that so closely imitated their European precedents that they would be virtually indistinguishable and could easily coexist in the same interior.

The tall clock case in Figure 1, which is signed by Barry, bears all the hallmarks of the Philadelphia Empire style while still proclaiming a strong connection to the eighteenth-century traditions of the Philadelphia cabinetmaking community. Indeed, since the absolute function of the form--a case to house an eight-day movement--overwhelmed any impulse to modify the design, both the proportions and the shape of the tall clock case changed little in its Empire manifestation from its eighteenth-century baroque design. Nonetheless, while certain design elements, such as the freestanding columns on the hood and the quarter columns and canted corners on the waist and base, are attributes of earlier cases, Barry used subtle decorative attributes of the Empire style to distinguish them. For instance, the vertical ridges on the quarter columns and canted corners are convex, or reeded, not concave, or fluted, as they are on baroque and rococo furniture. Reeding produces a bulging profile and gives the volumetric dimension that was embraced by the Empire style. Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) declared that it had been used by the ancient Egyptians but had eluded the ancient Greeks and Romans. (3) The carved eagle in the scroll pediment of the clock case unites the hood to the base, which is supported by anthropomorphic eagle claw-and-ball front feet. Both the eagle and the feet represent Barry's use of Philadelphia's specialist carvers, among them the well-known sculptor William Rush (1756-1833), to embellish his finest furniture commissions. The horizontally reeded, so-called beehive, back feet are often found on Philadelphia Empire furniture. The highly figured, vertically grained mahogany veneer inlaid in the waist door in the shape of a Gothic arch exemplifies the restrained surface ornamentation that relies on prized flitches of figured mahogany often seen on Philadelphia furniture of this period.