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New Old Sturbridge Village Antique Furniture Exhibit Opens Oct. 24 |
| Convenient and Fashionable: Furniture of Inland Massachusetts 1790-1830 Seldom seen treasures from the Old Sturbridge Village Collection |
| Sturbridge, Mass. – A new exhibit of fine antique furniture will open at Old Sturbridge Village Oct. 24 featuring rarely seen pieces of early Massachusetts furniture from the OSV collection. Entitled Convenient and Fashionable: Furniture of Inland Massachusetts 1790 – 1830, the exhibit spotlights work by both well-recognized and newly-introduced furniture makers of rural Massachusetts like Nathan Lombard of Sutton, Solomon Sibley of Ward (now Auburn), Alden Spooner and George Fitts of Athol, William Lloyd of Springfield, and John Smith of Barre.
Master furniture maker Norm Abram, who is host of the PBS Television series The New Yankee Workshop and a Trustee of Old Sturbridge Village, will host a brunch and book signing on Sat. Oct. 24. Examples of antique children’s furniture will be on display in the OSV Visitor Center, and there will be interactive displays of furniture making tools and techniques. The exhibit is free with museum admission. For details and to register for brunch with Norm Abram: visit www.osv.org or call 1-800-733-1830. One of the pieces to be exhibited, an 1807 bow front chest by Alden Spooner now in the OSV collection, was the inspiration for one of Abram’s most popular woodworking projects on The New Yankee Workshop. “Even though this bow front chest was made more than 200 years ago, it has almost a modern feel,” Abram notes. “In making the reproduction, it was a challenge to do dovetails on a bow front. Also, the original chest’s top is made from just one piece of wood. Because we don’t have access today to as many large, wide trees as were in early New England forests, I had to use several pieces of wood for the top of my reproduction bow front chest.” The artistry and skill of the Massachusetts rural cabinetmakers whose works are included in the Old Sturbridge Village exhibit is equal to that of more famous names like John Cogswell or John Seymour of Boston, notes Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts for Winterthur’s Program in American Material Culture. “These pieces are true treasures, carefully crafted and often expertly inlaid or carved.” “Cabinetmakers in inland Massachusetts made far more sophisticated furniture than previously thought, and more examples are still being discovered,” adds exhibit curator Nan Wolverton, Ph.D., of Hardwick, Mass. “Inland communities were growing wealthier, and people wanted fashionable, more elegant household furnishings. Fortunately, they didn’t have to travel far to find what they were looking for. They turned to local artisan-farmers for custom-made items like chests of drawers, card tables, desks, sofas and chairs.” Furniture pieces in the new exhibit were chosen both for the intricacies of their craftsmanship, and for their provenance. Many of the pieces are marked by their makers, and many have documented histories of ownership tracing back to the buyers who acquired them and those who inherited them. For example, a beautiful reverse serpentine chest made in 1793 by John Smith of Barre, Mass. has never been on exhibit before. The chest -- always passed along to a female member of the family -- was acquired from a female Smith descendant and had a paper documenting its maker and the history of ownership tucked away in a top drawer. Among the more distinctive pieces in the exhibit is a chest of drawers (circa 1800-1805) attributed to Nathan Lombard of Sutton. The piece is on loan from a private collector, and has a history of ownership in Sturbridge. It is believed to have stood in the Oliver Wight house, which is now owned by Old Sturbridge Village. The chest has the signature on one of its drawers belonging to an innkeeper who ran the house as a tavern after 1815. Another chest of drawers in the exhibit was just purchased by Old Sturbridge Village this year. Made in 1813 the chest carries this inscription: ““Wm. Richardson made this chest for his wife, Alice Comins Richardson.” Also in the exhibit is a desk-and-bookcase made in Leicester, Mass. with this inscription: “This secretary was built about the year 1812 by John Alden Denny for Joseph Denny.” “Like many early desk-and-bookcases, the Denny secretary has a hidden secret compartment on the inside,” notes Wolverton. “The trick is figuring out the cabinetmaker’s ingenuity in creating the hidden compartment!” Old Sturbridge Village is one of the oldest and largest living history museums in the country and celebrates New England life in the 1830s. The museum is open year round, but hours of operation vary seasonally. For details www.osv.org; 1-800-733-1830. # # #
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