52nd Annual Delaware Show

New York attribution. Charles Venable noted that “since the provenance of this set of chairs is unknown and the secondary woods of ash and cherry are common to both Europe and America, one cannot be certain if these chairs were actually made in this country or simply imported.” 4 Although much furniture was imported to the United States, thousands of immigrant European craftsmen worked in the furniture industry in the nineteenth century. Within the more than 3,000 cabinetmaker shops in New York City in 1855, at least 61 percent of the employees were German by birth. Other cities boasted significant numbers of German craftsmen as well, with more than 550 cabinetmakers and turners of German origin in Philadelphia in 1850. With such high numbers, it seems likely that Biedermeier designs were well known in American workshops. 5 Close examination of one of the Winterthur chairs yields an intriguing notation scrawled in pencil on the bottom of a seat rail. It reads “36 Bond St” and was perhaps a note intended for a delivery man (fig. 4) . Whether this marking refers to Bond Street in New York is unclear, but a Bond Street address in the city is consistent with the high quality and exotic design of these chairs. The first house at 36 Bond Street was constructed in 1833 for Samuel B. Ruggles, a prominent lawyer and politician involved in the development of New York’s railroad network. Perhaps best remembered as the donor of the land now known as Gramercy Park, Ruggles also represented the United States at several assemblies and conferences in Europe. In 1839 he sold the Bond Street town house to Abraham Schermerhorn, a politician, businessman, and partner in the shipping company of P. & A. Schermerhorn. Well-connected in New York City, Schermerhorn’s daughters married members of the city’s elite, with one becoming Mrs. William B. Astor. Ownership of these chairs by either family seems plausible, as they could have afforded furniture of this quality and were likely familiar with Biedermeier designs through their business connections in Europe. 6 Early nineteenth-century New York was considered an architectural backwater, a connotation that changed with a series of construction projects in the 1820s and 1830s. With the growth of commerce and industry in lower Manhattan, wealthier residents began moving uptown toward Washington Square, Bleecker Street, and Bond Street, expressing their sophisticated aesthetic tastes in architecture through handsome town houses. James Silk Buckingham took note of these new dwellings while visiting from England in the late 1830s: “The interior of the principal houses may be described as Fig. 4. Detail of the graphite inscription on the underside of the seat rail in Fig. 1. — 105 —