In large part, the American home was furnished with products from the English brass manufacturing centers of Bristol and Birmingham. As these objects were damaged or became outmoded, they were normally recycled, the American brazier rarely having access to copper and zinc. By the mid-eighteenth century dwindling supplies of firewood rendered andirons superfluous in English households, which had turned to coal, whereas in America, unlimited forests ensured the form’s persistence. Although British foundries continued to manufacture andirons for export, American braziers began to produce distinctive regional patterns. The Bayou Bend andirons represent one of the most dynamic Rococo designs, undoubtedly similar to those described by Charleston merchant James Duthie in his advertisement: “just imported. . . a few pair of Chamber Dogs, the handsomest that were ever brought into this province, with large brass twisted, plain and fluted pillars ... made in New York.”

Technical notes: The legs are integral with the plinth base. The plinth, baluster, and finial are hollow-cast and vertically seamed. They are assembled with an internal rod secured by a threaded nut at the bottom and peened at the top.

Related examples: Other examples include Ward 1980, p. 1307; Stillinger 1990, pp. 57, 152; Fennimore 1996, p. 139, no. 59. Similar andirons were once attributed to Paul Revere, Jr., and Son based on a set on which the mark is no longer considered authentic (Davidson 1967, p. 270, no. 410).

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.