Furniture Design Ideas

To summarize, the antecedents of Boston ЬотЫ furniture arose 011 the Continent, Stemming from Italian design sources, the bombe cascpiecc was transformed into contemporary usage by French cabi­netmakers, then adopted and reinterpreted by English taste, tradi­tion, and Craftsmanship before it was accepted in colonial America, In the manner peculiar to the arts, the bomb£ form […]

The makers of only four pieces of boston bombe furniture have been identified. Л desk and bookcase, signed by Benjamin Frothing ham and dated 1753, is the earliest documented example of the bombe form in Boston (fig. 97). An unusual bomb£ desk and bookcase widi paw feet and a squatty upper section is bbclled by […]

Any study of Boston bombd furniture is dependent upon correct identification. Since few examples bear labels or other inscriptions identifying makers, a dose inspection of the inner construction and identification of the d і Accent woods is as necessary for the full under­standing of a piece of furniture as is the analysis of the exterior […]

The sources oi American bombf furniture present a complex prob­lem. The first native manifestation of Bostonians’ taste for the curvi­linear baroque style is found in silver. With its easy transportability, inherent value, and strong dependence on Continental design, silver 4. Desmond Rlr-GcTald, Geetfran Furniture (London, 1969), fig. 11. 5. Chippendale ііїо imported French furniiure; Edward […]

The word "bombe” is a recent term taken from the French verb bomber, meaning to bulge or jut our. The wrotd had been used to de­scribe both French and English furniture in the nineteenth century. The first publication to use the word to describe American furniture is Esdier Singleton’s Furniture of Our Forefathers (New York, […]

The appearance of the bombtf form in Boston poses a number of complex, unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable questions. What is the origin of the form that became so popular in Boston? How did 94. Tea Table. Boston ігєя, e. 1740-1770. Mahngmy and white pine; H, 17% indies, w. indies, n. aj indies. (Museum of Pine […]

T HE American bombtf cascpiecc is among the most ou[standing furniture forms produced by American eighteenth-century craftsmen. Bomb£ furniture is rare, well designed, and skill­fully constructed. More importantly for the historian, its produc­tion was almost exclusively confined to the city of Boston and its immediate environs.1 A study of this type of furniture will add […]

The ires arc undeniably forwarder in Massachusetts-Bay, thin either in Решу I vania or New York, The public buildings are more elegant; and there is a more general cum for music, painting, and the belles lettres,1 T HUS Andrew Burnaby, Vicar of Greenwich, England, de­scribed Boston in 1760, He was impressed by die gentle ele­gance […]

F OR decades, scholars have been looking with fascination at co­lonial japanned fumiLure made in Boston. They have lavished attention on these pieces, elegant or gaudy, according to your eye, and their writings have expressed a deep yearning to know who decorated them. As so often happens, history has not been co-opera­tive. No one, in […]

who advertised in The Button News-Letter of April 25 – May 2, 1715; “ Looki ng-G lasses of all sorts. Glass Sconces, Cabbinctts Esc г u to ires Chcsts4>f*Dnweis, Tables, Beaufetts, Writing Desks, Bookcases with Desks, old Glasses new Silvered, and all sons of Japan-work, Done and Sold by M rilllam Randle at the Sign […]