a partial bibliography of 17th furniture

mostly New England, some England

[I have a post about making my oak boxes in the works, but it’s not quite done. In the meantime, here’s a free post that’s just what the title says - a bibliography of reference books I’ve used over the past decades.]

Last week a reader sent a note about a book he was reading on 17th-century (mostly) New England furniture - Benno Forman’s American Seating Furniture 1630-1730, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1988). And that got me thinking about my early involvement in studying this period of furniture. Collecting the books was as important as the museum visits and all the rest. I used to keep a running bibliography when I was writing for publication. I fell out of that habit at some point, so it’s not as up-to-date as it might be. But many of the books I’ve used over the years are still perfectly valid today. Finding the out-of-print books is easier than it used to be as well. I looked up some pricing - and I was surprised at how affordable some of them are, some are still through the roof. And that prompted this post - a partial bibliography about 17th century furniture.

Forman

So I’ll start with Forman's book. Published after his death, finished by two of his students/colleagues - Robert Blair St. George and Robert Trent. More than just a catalogue of the seating furniture in the Winterthur collection, the first 1/3 of the book is great introductory material to the furniture of the period. It was one of the first books I studied on the subject. 

New England Begins

Museum catalogues, both for exhibitions and overall  collections are great resources. The best of the bunch is the 3-volume New England Begins: the Seventeenth Century (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1982) edited by Jonathan Fairbanks and Robert Trent. Although the volumes cover most of the material culture of the period - there’s scads of furniture in this set. If you have a strong interest in this subject, this book is top of the list. 

I think of St. George’s book The Wrought Covenant: Source Material for the Study of Craftsmen and Community in Southeastern New England 1620-1700 (Brockton, Massachusetts, Brockton Art Center, 1979) as a companion piece to NEB. An exhibition catalogue of a show of furniture from southeastern Massachusetts. Nowadays I tell people “don’t bother reading it - just study the photos and captions” Beyond that, there are excellent inventory samples in the appendix about tradesmen and their tools and a listing of woodworking craftsmen of the area. And a good bibliography. 

Another book I pored over constantly in the early years was an anthology Trent edited - articles culled from the magazine Antiques - Pilgrim Century Furniture (New York: Main St/Universe Books, 1976) It’s still a vital collection of the early research into the subject. I use mine frequently. 

Another museum publication detailing furniture from what is now Connecticut is Patricia Kane’s Furniture of the New Haven Colony - the Seventeenth-Century Style (New Haven Colony Historical Society, 1973) - [a redundant title, New Haven Colony only existed in the 17th century] but a great view into a significant body of work. If you can, find the updated edition that includes an appendix of pieces found after the first edition. It was published in 1993. 

Gerry Ward wrote a catalogue of the collection at Yale University - the first chunk of which concerns the early stuff. Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988) - I guess now that book is superseded by the collection online - and the same could probably be said for Richard H. Randall, Jr. American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1965) - I used to use both of these books, but these days I’m more inclined to search the website for each of those institutions for information about those collections. However, Ward’s book has very detailed descriptions of the objects - it’s the pictures that are a bit disappointing in that book - too small. 

One book that came out long after these is Frances Gruber Safford’s American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art I: Early Colonial Period: The Seventeenth-Century and William and Mary Styles (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007). A view into that large collection at the Met. Great photos by Gavin Ashworth. 

The earlier wave of books on this subject - I collected these (except Lyon) as early edition hardcovers. Some, the Nutting in particular, are often found as Dover paperback reprints. Those work, but the early ones are larger and have better reproductions of the photos. But, it depends on your level of fanaticism. 

Irving Whitall Lyon, The Colonial Furniture of New England (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1891)

Lockwood

Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901);  3^rd edition (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926)

Wallace Nutting, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1921)

 Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury (Framingham, Massachusetts: Old America Company, 1928) 2 vols.

Clair Franklin Luther, The Hadley Chest (Hartford, Connecticut: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, 1935)    [Later Phil Zea & Suzanne Flynt published a short volume on Hadley Chests that is a nice companion to the Luther volume - Zea & Flynt, Hadley Chests (Deerfield, MA., Pockumtuck Valley Memorial Association, 1992) ]

A couple of books on English stuff - If you only need one book on British furniture, get Chinnery’s Oak Furniture: the British Tradition. (I wrote about that book earlier):

Church

But if you want more, Jourdain is very good. The first used book I bought online...

Margaret Jourdain,  English Decoration and Furniture, of the Early Renaissance, 1500-1650,  (London: BT Batsford LTD, Scribners, NY, 1924)

S. W. Wolsey & R. W. Luff, Furniture in England: the Age of the Joiner (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969) - well, I probably kept this book because the Stent panel is on the dust jacket. Pre-restoration - the cord from the lathe is broken. Legend has it that the panel fell off the wall during the Blitz. 

More recently (well, 15 years ago!) a book about chairs from England - Tobias Jellinek, Early British Chairs and Seats 1500-1700 (Antique Collectors Club, 2009) - the text made me crazy, but the photos are fabulous. 

On the subject of British books - a lavish and indulgent book that is always fascinating to pore through is Adam Bowett’s Woods in British Furniture Making 1400-1900: An Illustrated Historical Dictionary (Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens, 2012). Don’t open that book if you have to be somewhere. You won’t make your appointment.