The Richard Crowninshield Derby Inlaid Mahogany Sideboard, c. 1800- 1810, Boston, attributed to John and Thomas Seymour, height 36.25in.,length 71.25in., depth 26 in. E180000/250000 Made in the period 1800-1810 by John Seymour and his son Thomas, this sideboard displays elements of both the father's English training and habits of joinery and workmanship, and the son's genius for design. The rather simple overall planes of the D-shaped form, rarely employed by the Seymours, are amplified by extraordinary examples of one of the Seymour's specialties, fancy veneer and stringing work. Few examples of their work employ such a variety of inlay designs and variations. The veneers selected demonstrate the international reach of Boston's overseas merchants: African mahogany (crossbandings on drawers and doors), crotch-figured mahogany from Central America (doors and drawers), satinwood from the Caribbean (lower door "reeds" and inlaid columns), and purpleheart from South America (cross-banding around drawer oval). These exotics are combined with three domestic American favorites: birds-eye maple, curly ("tiger") maple and crotch birch ( oval inlay in central drawer). These expensive materials were augmented with a top made of a single wide board of mahogany with light "plum pudding" figure. At least one of the veneer stringing patterns on the sideboard was learned by John Seymour in England before his emigration , and is currently believed to be unique to the Seymours among Boston artisans. This pattern is used just above and below the mock-fluted columns on the lower doors, and is a somewhat simpler version of the familiar "lunette" inlay, which was once mistakenly thought to be unique to furniture from the Seymour shop. The garlanded column inlays follow English precedents with their delicate sand-scorched detailing and precisely-cut pliths and capitals adding a three-dimensional effect to these planar features. Three other stringing patterns on the sideboard can be found on numerous other furniture made by the Seymours, but are not unique in Boston to their shop alone. Their hand can also be recognized by the use of cherry for drawer sides; soft maple for door grounds; fine drawer dovetailing and a distinctive arrangement of short segmented glue blocks on the undersides of the drawers; derived from English practice(now partially covered by drawer runner repairs); the use of four wedged through-tenons where each medial vertical case partition penetrates the backboards of the case. Eastern white pine was used forall other secondary elements, typical throughout upper coastal New England. The lower central doors of the sideboard resemble tambour doors with their alternating dark and light veneers, but in fact are hinged at the right and left. This style of door is frequently termed "blind" today. Such faux-tambouring is rare for the Seymour shop, having been found only on a single lady's secretary. Equally rare is the design of the legs and feet which retain their original height, with their reeded upper spools and mock-fluted inlays and veneers, probably of African mahogany. The long leg shafts have several long strips inlaid which taper to the ankle, a feature used on a very few other Seymour pieces. The outer edges of the cylindrical feet are veneered with narrow wood strips of similar species. The design of thefeet (all original) is perhaps unique in American furniture, but loosely resembles one similar English Design of the period. Thomas Seymour is known to have owned a copy of Thomas Sheraton's "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book", London, 1793; second edition 1794, and the enormous variation in styles of feet employed onhis furniture suggests he was also working from other English pattern books, possibly the 1794 London Cabinetmaker's Book of Prices and Designs of Cabinet Work", pub. 1793, revised 1803. Thomas clearly experimented early in his career with these published designs to introduce English high style and distinctive novelty to Bostonians. This particular foot design, when combined with the sideboard's superbwood and veneer selection in all its inlaid variations, must have had great appeal to a style-conscious family. It would certainly have beenone of the more expensive products of the Seymour shop during a great period of economic boom in Boston and Salem just prior to the bust of the War of 1812. Genealogy The sideboard is branded "R C Derby" in three locations indicating its first owner was Richard Crowninshield Derby. * It descended through the Derby family directly to its presentowner, along with the portrait of Mrs. Allen by Joseph Badger, and a Derby provenance blockfront walnut lowboy, also offered for sale at this auction. The painting hung over the sideboard in the present owner's New Orleans home for many years. Brands such as these were frequently employed in Portsmouth, NH and Salem, MA as a contractual requirement of the fire insurance companies, which insured a family's house and furnishings. When a fire occurred, furniture was often desperately hauled out into the yard by family and neighbors in an attempt to save it, and was easily mixed up in the chaos of other neighbors removing the contents of their house into the street. In theaftermath, the brand increased the chances the furniture would eventually be reunited with its rightful owner. Newspaper issues immediately following fires in Boston typically included a long seriesof advertisements pleading for returns of favorite family objects, politely identified in print as "mislaid" or "inadvertently exchanged" but privately presumed to be stolen. Richard Crowninshield Derby ( 1777-1854) was son of Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799), scion of one of the wealthiest and most famous families of post-Revolutionary Salem. Elias Hasket Derby, his son Richard, and his daughter Elizabeth Derby 1762-1814), patronized the finest cabinetmakers and artisans of Salem and Boston. Before divorcing her husband Nathaniel West, the two builtand furnished their home "Oak Hill" in Danvers near Salem with a number of the finest pieces ever produced by Thomas Seymour. Many of these spectacular furnishings are displayed in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the original Oak Hill Rooms removed from the Derby-West house and reinstalled in the museum. Furnishings include a great neo- classical demi-lune commode chest, with the top decorated with a painting of a seashell. The original signed receipt from Thomas Seymour to Elizabeth Derby West survives, and records Seymour's use ofsubcontractors John Penniman for the decorative painting, and English-trained Thomas Wightman for the carving. Richard Derby's name brand onthe present sideboard indicate Thomas Seymour and perhaps his father were the select cabinetmaker for a broader group of the Derby Family of this generation. Surprisingly few pieces of any form made by the Seymours are marked and with proven histories of ownership in one family through an unbroken line of descent. The rarity of this sideboard's history is therefore notable. Its importance is further amplified by liberal use of a variety of exotic and domestic veneers. The wide variety of imaginative veneer designs embellish what must surely be considered a superb example of the Seymours' work. Twenty years after their emigration, they retained the father's training in George III English neo-classicism, combining with these design elements from imported English pattern books, with addition of son Thomas's gift for brilliant design and craftsmanship. Condition: Refinished; some losses and restorations to veneers; prior repairs to cracks in legs; hardware replaced within last 50 years (originally hadround brass pulls and backplates); restoration brass gallery around the top recently removed; interior of lower compartments stained; feltlining added in drawers. Branded twice on front face of backboards, behind the central drawer, and once on the bottom boards. Provenance: Richard Crowninshield Derby John Barton Derby George Horatio Derby George McClellan Derby Roger Barton Derby of New Orleans