This summer, visitors to the Philadelphia Museum of Art will reach into the vest pocket of an Eighteenth Century master furniture craftsman and pull out his secret guide to pricing furniture in colonial America’s wealthiest and most fashionable city. “The Fix On Colonial Philadelphia Furniture: A Secret Guide to Cabinetmakers’ Prices,” currently on view through next spring, showcases the only remaining copy of the world’s first published furniture price book alongside the very works of art it lists.
Philadelphia’s 36-page printed price book is on display for the first time, along with enlargements of selected pages to help visitors decode the price lists. As a price guide, the book reveals the array of furniture †ranging from tables, chairs, chests and bookshelves to picture frames, ironing boards and even coffins †and the values craftsmen assigned to various sizes and embellishments. The exhibition spans two American art galleries and features 23 pieces of colonial furniture, including items from the museum’s famous Cadwalader collection.
“This illuminating little book was a fabulous discovery for American furniture scholars, curators, collectors and students of all sorts,” said Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, associate curator of American art. “It tells us a great deal about the furniture industry in colonial Philadelphia, from craftsmen’s early use of price fixing to steady the market to the terms they used to describe furniture forms and decorative embellishments. The price book also reveals the options available to Philadelphia’s eager, prosperous patrons.”
Visitors to Gallery 286 will see the price book along with 12 pieces of furniture that correspond closely to forms delineated in it. On its first five pages, the price guide lists high-ticket case pieces that colonial Philadelphians used for work and storage. A chest-on-chest created by the freed African American cabinetmaker Thomas Gross of Germantown between 1805 and 1810 precisely matches an item included in the guide more than 30 years earlier †a testament to the enduring demand for its design. Made of highly figured mahogany yet void of other decoration, the chest-on-chest would have commanded far less money than more elaborate pieces, such as the highly ornamented 8-foot-tall mahogany desk and bookcase, circa 1762, or a scroll-headed walnut high chest, circa 1770, both also on view. The exhibition also showcases tables, chairs and household “basics,” such as a cradle, a writing table and a bottle case.
In Gallery 287, visitors will step into the second-floor front parlor of Samuel and Elizabeth Powel’s Third Street house, which now exhibits treasures from the Powel’s friends and neighbors John and Elizabeth Lloyd Cadwalader, including their impressive portrait with their daughter by Charles Willson Peale. The Cadwaladers commissioned the mahogany furniture now in the Powel Room in 1770 from Philadelphia cabinetmaker Thomas Affleck to harmonize with the English furniture, silver and decorative arts the couple had inherited from Elizabeth Lloyd Cadwalader’s parents. Carved by highly specialized artisans, the furniture is considered one of the most elaborately ornamented pieces made in the colonies. Using a copy of Affleck’s bill, more than 235 years later, nearly all the furniture in the Cadwalader room can be matched in form and price to works listed in the price book.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street. For information, 215-763-8100 or www.philamuseum.org .
