Fire Screen

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Fire Screen
Datec. 1785–1820
Probable placeMassachusetts, United States
Possible placeBoston area, Massachusetts, United States
MediumMahogany and unidentified inlay; brass
Dimensions57 1/2 × 19 1/4 × 16 5/8 in. (146.1 × 48.9 × 42.2 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.61.77
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Federal Parlor
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

The Bayou Bend fire screen is doubly atypical, first, in having wooden rather than framed textile or paper panels, and second, for an accompanying folding-shelf, an addition that corresponds to the “fire Screen with a leaf to set candlestick on,” charged by Salem cabinetmaker Jacob Sanderson in 1802. Its pictorial marquetry inlay of shells appears on a variety of furniture forms, largely of eastern Massachusetts origin. The presence of similar inlays on New York and Baltimore card tables raises the possibility of a common English origin.

Technical notes: Mahogany, unidentified inlay. The legs are secured with an iron brace; the T-shaped bracket is held in place by an attached support. The screen appears to retain its original hardware.

Related examples: Comstock 1965, no. 545, purportedly made by Thomas Hodgkins; Antiques 63 (March 1953), p. 171; Montgomery 1966b, pp. 246–47, no. 203; Sack 1969–92, vol. 4, p. 1017, no. P3820; Antiques 117 (March 1980), p. 458. Candlestands with comparable turnings include Swan 1945, pp. 223–24; Sack 1969–92, vol. 2, p. 305, no. 744.

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.


Provenance[John S. Walton (1907–1985), New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1961; given to MFAH, by 1966.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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