A Fine and Rare Federal Carved and Inlaid Mahogany Sideboard with Ivory Escucheons, Case Attributed to the Shop of Benjamin Bass Jr. (1775-1819), Carving attributed to Thomas Wightman (1759–1827), Boston, Massachusetts, Circa 1810

Neal Auction Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, Important Winter Estates Auction, February 20, 2016, lot 497.

A nearly identical sideboard in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art contains an interesting history of attribution to the renowned Boston cabinetmaker, Thomas Seymour. This sideboard was the property of Townsend H. Soren of Hartford, Connecticut, and bears the pencil inscription “Mary Wood, April 14 1810 Boston, Mass,” which was purported to be a likely date and place of origin for the sideboard. The Soren-family sideboard is virtually identical to the subject sideboard, with exception to the position of the demilune banding. Both sideboards exhibit distinctive rosette-carved ovolos atop the front four reeded and acanthus leaf-carved legs, which serve to divide the whole into three sections with flanking outer convex short drawers over side doors and a middle concave section with a long drawer over two bottle drawers and double doors.

In 1937, Mabel Munson Swan attributed the Soren-family sideboard, a related tambour sideboard (then the property of Andrew Varrick Stout), and the Derby-family demilune commode to Boston cabinetmakers, John and Thomas Seymour in Antiques, upon extensive research of the father-son team. This attribution was based on another labeled Hepplewhite-style tambour desk and ten years later, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curator Edwin J. Hipkiss, discovered a bill to Mrs. Derby from Thomas Seymour in 1809; the most expensive piece itemized on the bill was a demilune commode for $80. This seemed to solidify the attribution to the work of solely Thomas Seymour for several decades, with the Soren-family sideboard being discussed once again in Robert D. Mussey Jr., The Furniture Masterworks of John & Thomas Seymour, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, 2003, catalogue entry 46, p. 226-7. All of these pieces of furniture had nearly identical reeded and acanthus-leaf carved legs and the distinctive rosette-carved ovolos as seen on the subject sideboard.

Nevertheless, a maker’s signature was recently discovered on another virtually identical mate to the Soren-family sideboard, which instigated Morrison Heckscher’s article “Benjamin Bass and Boston Sideboards: A Question of Attribution.” This sideboard signed “Benjamin Bass, Jr / Boston / Fecit” on the bottom of the left-hand drawer was originally owned by Benjamin Weld (1758–1839), a deputy collector of customs for the city of Boston. In the 1970s, Page Talbot conducted a groundbreaking study on the furniture trade in Boston from 1810 to 1835 and unearthed the history of this prolific, although long-forgotten, Boston cabinetmaker. Benjamin Bass Jr. was born in 1775 and was first recorded as a journeyman joiner in 1797 tax records when he was twenty-two years-old, but there are no records or clues as to whom he apprenticed with in his youth. From 1798 to 1801 he boarded over the shop of currier Stephen Gore at 12 Orange Street and purchased the Orange Street building from Gore in 1802, where he would reside until his death in 1819. Tax records between 1800 and 1819 show that some fifty different journeymen cabinetmakers resided with Bass on Orange Street, the majority of whom did not last more than one year. One journeyman by the name of James Barker came to Orange Street in 1812 and became Bass’s business partner around 1814. Between 1812 and 1815, the taxes on 12 Orange Street were paid by an entity called “Benjamin Bass & Co.”

Heckscher notes that Bass’s colorful life and operation is incongruous to the furniture he made. He belonged to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, alongside other furniture makers such as his partner, James Barker, and Thomas Seymour, and was respected within the community. Nevertheless, Bass’s career as a cabinetmaker in Boston was ultimately tumultuous due to an over-zealous business plan. The size of his operation exceeded the ability of his workforce, with Bass attempting to both manufacture furniture and supply mahogany and other wares to the city of Boston. Eventually, he would die intestate and in serious debt on August 26, 1819, at the age of forty-four years old. An advertisement regarding the auction of Bass’s property stated “Elegant Cabinet Furniture and Chairs, made by the first workmen, of the best stock, and of the newest fashions” and concluded that “this is probably the best collection of Mahogany Furniture ever offered at auction in this town.” The inventory of Bass’s estate listed hundred of pieces of furniture, the majority of which were inexpensive tables, stands, and chairs, and thousands of unassembled furniture components. Two sideboards were amongst the more expensive items listed, but the most expensive was a “Grand Side Board,” for $100.

Upon investigating Bass’s life in conjunction with the “Grand Side Board,” Heckscher asks “How does one reconcile this picture of Benjamin Bass as master craftsman and maker of a “Grand Side Board” with the picture of a man who owned and operated a shop with a constantly changing mix of journeyman cabinetmakers, who engaged in wide-ranging business transactions with many of Boston’s other leading cabinetmaking firms or individuals (even supplying his competitors with mahogany), and who, as time went on, invested in large-scale manufacturing?” His answer to this question is to acknowledge the vastness and complexity of the 19^th century furniture trade. Bass’s list of creditors and debtos proves he worked with many famous furniture makers, such as Emmons & Archbald and Isaac Vose, John Doggett & Co., Thomas Wightman, Levi Ruggles, Lemuel Churchill, William Fisk, Henry Hancock, and Isaac Otis, to name a few. He was also in close association with Thomas Seymour. Furthermore, he had several specialized journeymen cutting, turning, carving, and veneering the piece. This sideboard is thus a reflection of Benjamin Bass Jr.’s design and a product of the furniture making community in Boston in the early 19^th century.

For more information on Benjamin Bass Jr. and an in depth comparison of related sideboards, see Morrison Heckscher, “Benjamin Bass and Boston Sideboards: A Question of Attribution,” in Brock Jobe and Gerald W.R. Ward, Boston Furniture 1700-1900, (Boston, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2016), pp. 239-249.