By the 1820s, New York City had become the major center for the manufacture of furniture by large firms such as the shops of Duncan Phyfe or Joseph Meeks. The furniture line of the Meeks firm is well documented by its 1833 broadside. Indeed, in its general scheme, this sideboard closely resembles one illustrated there as number 33, differing primarily in its central raised platform on the splashboard and in its massive eagle brackets and paw feet. By this period such details could be added to or deleted from the basic model, so the possibility exists that the Bayou Bend example might well be the product of the Meeks factory. The magnificent figured mahogany veneers, ebonizing, and gilded decoration represent the acme of New York taste in the late classical style and indicate that originally this was a very expensive piece of furniture.

Technical notes: Mahogany (small columns on top; side slides), mahogany veneer; mahogany (feet, pedestals on top, drawer sides), white oak (vertical strips on either side of center door), soft maple (large columns on sides), ash (case corner blocks by drawer sides), eastern white pine (horizontal support underneath drawers, inner framing and back of drawers, upper backboards), yellow-poplar (horizontal board above drawers, six-inch front base rail veneered with mahogany, drawer backs and bottoms), brass casters and pull (slide on left side). Ash divider in right drawer is a later addition. The lion’s-head pulls on the lower section are an early replacement. In 1966, Peter Hill restored the stenciled leaves to the tops of the two columns flanking the portico and restored the painted border around the pedestals at the ends of the back rail. The gilded decoration across the front of the two drawers has been modified. The perimeter of the black background on the drawer front has been strengthened by the addition of an unsympathetic muddy black. The cross sections indicate more than one layer of gold. Based on three samples taken, there appears to be a correlation between the earlier gold placement and the later. It is possible but unclear that the current decoration matches the original.

Related examples: Advertisement of Aileen Minor American Antiques (Antiques 42 [October 1992], p. 472) illustrates a very similar example. Similar in concept, although not in execution, is an example at Montgomery Place, Tarrytown, New York (Butler 1988, p. 297).

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.