Isaac Conklin
Pair of Andirons

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Pair of Andirons
Datec. 1807–1817
Made inNew York , New York, United States
MediumIron and brass
Dimensions.1: 24 1/2 x 11 1/4 x 18 3/4 in. (62.2 x 28.6 x 47.6 cm)
.2: 24 5/8 × 11 1/8 × 18 1/2 in. (62.5 × 28.3 × 47 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson and Mr. and Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell, Jr.
Object numberB.96.2.1,.2
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Queen Anne Bedroom
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

Andirons composed of iron and brass elements evince a collaboration between the blacksmith and the brazier. From a practical consideration, their wrought-iron feet, legs, and upright better withstood the fire’s intensity and did not require polishing. To the practicality of the iron, the brass elements added their stylishness, as Jacob Wilkins’s 1765 advertisement for an “assortment of iron andirons with brass heads’' implies. The two-dimensional baluster shape of the Bayou Bend andirons must have found its inspiration in the brass examples popular at the time as well as earlier (see B.61.108.1, .2). The Conklin-Whittingham andirons are the only marked examples of this type.

Technical notes: The brass cap and urn are separate elements, the latter cast in halves and seamed.

Related examples: Antiques 40 (October 1941), p. 192; Antiques 126 (August 1984), p. 329; Antiques 140 (September 1991), p. 264: Fennimore 1996, p. 145, nos. 65a, b; Skinner, Bolton, sale 1755, January 12, 1997, lot 112.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.


ProvenanceOveta Culp Hobby (1905–1995), Houston; [Phyllis Tucker Antiques, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 1996.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
On plinth: Mark of Isaac Conklin [Fennimore 1996, p. 145]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Pair of Andirons
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Pair of Andirons
c. 1760–1800
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no date
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c. 1760–1780
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scan from file photograph
c. 1790–1810
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c. 1810–1825
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