Bombé Desk and Bookcase Benjamin Frothingham, Jr.

Transcription

1 Bombé Desk and Bookcase Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. TITLE Bombé Desk and Bookcase ARTIST/MAKER Benjamin Frothingham Jr. (American, ) PLACE MADE United States: Massachusetts: Charlestown DATE MADE 1753 CULTURE North American MATERIALS Wood; mahogany; white pine; eastern red cedar; Spanish cedar MEASUREMENTS Overall: 98¼ in x 44½ in x 24¾ in; cm x cm x cm

2 INSCRIPTIONS ACCESSION NO. All in pencil in the same hand, Do Sprage Benj. Frothingham on the rear surface of the back of the upper drawer of the lower case { Do is an archaic form of Dr. }; Benj. Frothingham on bottoms of two upper left desk interior drawers; Do Sprage 1753 on the side of the inner left secret document drawer; BF 1753 on the side of the inner left secret document drawer, BF 1753 on the bottom of the upper left letter drawer; TN jr on the back of the upper left letter drawer; box on back of the prospect door. All in similar black paint, Dr H F Spee {r} New York Harlem RR on the back panels of the lower case; Car 1534, Sept on the top of the lower case (Dr. Speer s identity is unknown) stamped in ink of the top of the lower case; 2332 in chalk on the back panel of the upper case; 82 in black crayon on the back panel of the upper case is scratched twice into the top board of the lower case. RR OVERVIEW Every object has a story to tell, often one that brings history to life. This piece of furniture is a masterpiece made by 19-year-old Benjamin Frothingham Jr. ( ), a cabinetmaker and American soldier from Massachusetts. 1 At 19 years old, Frothingham was likely a journeyman, traveling and working for cabinetmakers in the region. This desk and bookcase was commissioned Dr. John Sprague ( ), a physician of Boston and Dedham, Massachusetts, and was recoded in his account book as a Desk & Booke Case 7 68 in This desk and bookcase is the first documented example of bombé furniture in the American colonies, and is part of what makes this a masterpiece. 3 The French word bombé means bulged or curved. It accurately describes how colonial Americans may have seen the unusual kettle-shaped base of the bookcase. 4 The form originated in ancient sarcophagi (coffins) from Rome and spread from Italy during the sixteenth century to Western Europe through artisans and craftsmen. 5 Bombé furniture is rare in America. 6 The few examples of eighteenth-century American bombé furniture were produced in Massachusetts. 7 Here master cabinetmakers created dramatic and stately interpretations of bombé furniture from British decorative arts (silver, furniture, and printed sources) imported into Massachusetts. 8 Frothingham signed this piece with his name in three locations. ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND By the 1750s, Boston had become a bustling center for the furniture trade. Skilled colonial cabinetmakers were encouraged to build sophisticated furniture for a growing cosmopolitan marketplace. 9 Artisans began their careers as apprentices, entering into legally binding contracts. 10 An apprentice could learn specialized skills of the trade in exchange for working eight-to-sixteen hour days without pay. 11 The length of an apprenticeship often varied, but seven years was not uncommon in America. 12 Following apprenticeships, journeymen were allowed to work and travel for wages, and successful journeymen accumulated wealth and trade connections to open shops of their own. 13

3 ARTIST/MAKER Benjamin Frothingham Jr. was born in Boston on April 6, His father worked on Milk Street as a joiner in the Boston furniture trade. 15 It is not known where the young Benjamin Frothingham trained as an apprentice, but he acquired specialized skills in cabinetmaking that distinguished his trade from his father s simple joinery. 16 Frothingham opened a shop on Walker Street, Charlestown, Massachusetts, across the river from Boston s North End. 17 On June 17, 1775, Frothingham s cabinetmaking shop in Charlestown, Massachusetts, was burned by the British in the American Revolutionary War. 18 This major historical event marked a major turning point in Frothingham s life. 19 Frothingham abandoned his cabinetmaking trade to join the American Revolution. 20 He served in George Washington s Continental Army and was wounded at the Battle of Germantown (1777). 21 Frothingham held several military positions throughout the war, among them First Lieutenant, Company Commander, and Captain of Artillery, and was known as Major Frothingham in his lifetime. 22 After the Revolutionary War, Frothingham worked again as a cabinetmaker in a lengthy career spanning five decades. 23 In 1789, Washington visited Frothingham, whom he had known in the army, while traveling through Massachusetts as the nation s first president. 24 Historian Hunnewell recorded the occasion: Major Benjn Frothingham lived on the lot next north of engine house opposite Walker Street, and who lost a dwelling, barn, and shop (destruction of Charlestown by the British in 1775). At this house, built, of course, after the war, General Washington made the only private call the only call that he ever made in Charlestown. 25 Frothingham was a member of the Society of Cincinnati (certificate, May 5, 1784) 26 and the Grand Sword Bearer in the Freemasons. 27 Frothingham s son, also named Benjamin, continued his father s trade as a cabinetmaker. 28 HISTORICAL ERA British victory in the Seven Years War ( ) opened new territories in North America and expanded the colonial frontier. However, victory came at a heavy cost. To pay for this war, the British crown imposed new taxes on the American colonies. 29 The Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) restricted colonial Americans from directly trading with other nations with the exception of Great Britain. 30 Additional trade regulations in the 1760s fueled unrest among colonists. 31 The Stamp Act (1765) taxed printed materials, such as newspapers and legal documents, among other everyday items. 32 Its repeal was followed by The Townshend Acts (1767), which imposed taxes on goods imported into the colonies. 33 On June 16, 1775, American patriots assembled in Massachusetts on the Charlestown peninsula, one of the most noteworthy battlegrounds of the Revolutionary War. 34 The following day, British troops attacked American colonials, 35 and 1,054 British soldiers died in the trenches north of Boston. 36 The conflict was remembered as the Battle of Bunker Hill. In retaliation, British soldiers set fire to Charlestown, Frothingham s hometown, destroying some 400 buildings. 37 A Massachusetts historian recounted the event, writing, No town [ ] had acted a bolder part in support of the patriot cause than Charlestown. 38

4 1 Richard H. Randall Jr., Benjamin Frothingham, in Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, ed. W. Whitehill (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974), John Sprague Paper, , Mss boxes / oversize volumes S, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester MA. Estate of James Green, Gift. 3 4 Jeffrey P. Greene, American Furniture of the 18 th Century: History, Technique, Structure (Newtown: The Tauton Press, 1996), Robert D. Mussey, Jr. Bombé desk and bookcase, Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State. (New York: Rizzoli), Vincent, The Bombé Furniture of Boston, City centers Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. 8 Vincent, The Bombé Furniture of Boston, David Jaffee, Art and Identity in the British North American Colonies, , in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000 ), 10 Q&A: Colonial Apprenticeships, Colonial Williamsburg ; Jared Ross Hardesty, Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston (New York: New York University Press, 2016), W.J. Rorabaugh, The Craft Apprentice: From Franklin to the Machine Age in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, 223; for location of birth, see Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts publication. 15 His father s shop burned in the Great Boston Fire of Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, Raymond McInnis, Glossary: Cabinetmaker Carpenter Craftsman Joiner Mechanic Artisan. An Online Dictionary of Woodworking, 17 Richard Frothingham, The History of Charlestown, Massachusetts (Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1845), Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, Paul Revere is another renowned Boston artist turned patriot. 20 Gilbert T. Vincent, The Bombé Furniture of Boston, in Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, ed. W. Whitehill (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974), Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts, ed. Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (1873), Phillis Wheatley s writing desk, Massachusetts Historical Society, for additional timeline of military service, see footnote two in To George Washington from Ezekiel Cheever, 17 July 1779, Founders Online, National Archives, last modified March 30, 2017, biographies of Frothingham typically refer to Frothingham as Major Benjamin Frothingham. 23 Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, 248. Mahogany Four Poster Bed Attributed to Benjamin Frothingham, 1796, Knox Museum, Peter Force, American Archives: Fourth Series Containing a Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America, from the King s Message to Parliament, of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence by The United States (Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1833), Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, Benjn Frothingham of Charlestown, Cabinetmaker and Solider, Magazine Antiques, (Dec. 1928): See footnote 2 in Randall, Benjamin Frothingham, Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts, 307; for information on the Society of the Cincinnati, see see Appendix E, Report on Fraternal Correspondence, in Newtown R. Parvin, Annals of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, A.F. & A.M., Vol. XXVI, Part I 1918 (Davenport: Fidlar & Chambers, Printers, 1918), 138, 28 Smith, Benjamin Frothingham, Larry Sawers, The Navigation Acts Revisited, The Economic History Review, New Series 45:2 (1992), Sawers, The Navigation Acts Revisited, 262, A Summary of the 1765 Stamp Act. Colonial Williamsburg, 33 The Townshend Acts. Massachusetts Historical Society: The Coming of the American Revolution Donald R. Lennon, Battle of Bunker Hill, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, ed. Timothy J. Lynch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), Lennon, Battle of Bunker Hill, 121.

5 36 37 ; Frothingham, The History of Charlestown, Massachusetts, Frothingham, The History of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 366.