Chest of drawers with looking glass, Boston, circa 1810, made by Thomas Seymour, carving by Thomas Wightman. Mahogany with bird's-eye maple and satinwood veneers. Gift of Miss Miriam Shaw and Francis Shaw, Jr. (Main page photo: Detail of side chair, Salem, circa 1795-1800, unknown maker, carving attributed to Samuel McIntire. Mahogany. Gift of Mrs Mary B. Yusko.)

SALEM, MASS. -- "Order and Elegance" celebrates the contributions of Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century cabinetmakers who worked along the coast of Massachusetts.

The display at the Peabody Essex Museum through December 30 also tells us much about life in early Nineteenth Century Salem: its customs, material culture, and influences. Salem was an important manufacturing center for Federal furniture, an articulation of Neo-classical style in the Colonies.

"Order and Elegance" is in part organized around a group of furnishings purchased by Lucy Hill, a Billerica, Mass., bride of 1810. With advice from family and friends, Hill chose Salem cabinetmaker Nehemiah Adams to craft furniture appropriate to her taste and means. In a letter to her fiance, she noted, "I can get ... [furniture] much handsomer here than I can get it in the country." She turned to Boston merchants for other types of furnishings, such as textiles, looking glasses, silver, crockery, glassware and metal ware.

Federal Salem boasted 61 cabinetmakers and 15 chair-makers, along with highly talented carvers, decorative painters and inlay specialists. These artisans were influenced by and, in turn, they freely interpreted, the English Neo-classical style practiced by makers such as Thomas Sheraton and George Hepplewhite.

Their uniquely American style was characterized by clean lines, geometric symmetry and Classical detail such as acanthus leaves, inlay in the form of urns and columns, sheaves of wheat, grape leaves and eagles. According to Dean Lahikainen, organizer of the exhibit and curator of American decorative arts at Peabody Essex, Nehemiah Adams was one of the better cabinetmakers working in Salem.

"Order and Elegance" shows eight pieces of the wedding furniture made for Lucy by Adams alongside furniture by other coastal Massachusetts craftsmen. Of note are the receipts for and letters about Lucy's wedding furniture that have descended through her family and are on loan to the Peabody Essex, providing a complete inventory of objects and their costs.

At the entrance of the gallery, where the eight Adams objects are on view, is a dainty worktable. It has fine, reeded legs and what appears to be two drawers, the lower of which is actually a sliding frame supporting a green silk tasselled workbag. The table cost $14 in 1810.

A lady's dressing table, similar to those in English pattern books of the time, has reeded legs and brass pulls with five-pointed stars. It cost $15. The dressing table would have been used with a looking glass like the 1810 example by Paul Mondelly of Boston, also on view. According to the receipts and letters that remain, the Foster house had five Mondelly looking glasses.

The centerpiece of the exhibit, and of Lucy Foster's parlor, is a mahogany and pine sofa with a richly carved eagle along the crest rail and acanthus leaves on the arm supports. Lucy paid $67 for it, and another $31 to have Salem upholsterer Jonathan Bight cover it with silk brocade.

Made of mahogany with pine secondary wood, a square card table features an elliptical front and ovolo corners. One of a pair that cost $40, it is similar to one in Sheraton's 1793 drawing book.

A triangular washstand, originally $8, was based on a Hepplewhite design. The viewer sees clearly the young bride-to-be planning her household. There is a personal sadness underlying the show, as Lucy was widowed suddenly only five months after her wedding. She went to live with family, taking her wedding furniture with her. She never remarried.

Demand for sophisticated design increased as inhabitants of Salem and its environs grew prosperous. This exhibit showcases a narrow window in time, 1800-1810, when Salem artisans were working at high levels of artistic creation and achievement.

Among forms introduced in the Federal period is a drawing table by an unknown maker, on view in the adjacent exhibit space. It is based on a Sheraton drawing, and its carved acanthus leaves and grapevines on a punched snowflake pattern ground are attributed to Samuel McIntire, generally regarded as the most gifted of the half dozen carvers active in Salem.

A sophisticated chest of drawers with a circular looking glass bears brasses in a floral pattern, and sheaves of wheat and acanthus leaves carved by Englishman Thomas Wightman. The chest was made in Boston by Thomas Seymour for Elizabeth Derby West, daughter of Salem merchant Elias Hasket West.

A circa 1800 rectangular piano in mahogany and pine by Benjamin Crehore of Milton is an example of another new and very fashionable form. It is based on English patterns, with inlay, painted floral designs and brasses with florettes.

A circa 1795-1800 side chair by an unknown maker, also with carving attributed to McIntire, was adapted from a drawing by Hepplewhite. It is of mahogany, with hair-cloth upholstery. Modern technology has caught up with this piece, explains Lahikainen. Non-interventional upholstery techniques developed within the last 15 years allow reupholstery without webbing, stuffing, tack holes or other invasive and potentially destructive procedures. Lahikainen cautions that the piece is not altogether comfortable for sitting. Then again, something nearly 200 years old doesn't deserve to be sat on anyway.

Peabody Essex Museum, at East India Square in Salem, houses collections of maritime art and history, American architecture and decorative art, Asian export art, and Native American art, as well as Asian, Oceanic and African art. The museum also operates a research library, period gardens, historic houses, a cafe and two museum shops. Telephone 508/745-1876.