Author Description

This important book, the result of discoveries made during an exhaustive survey of Portsmouth furniture at more than 210 sites throughout the country, places the furniture makers of Portsmouth alongside those of Newport, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York as creators of some of the finest early American furniture. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), a regional museum with more than forty properties, owns seven historic houses in the Portsmouth area. The objects in these houses constitute the largest collection of Portsmouth furniture anywhere. The present volume results from intensive study of SPNEA's Portsmouth holdings, surviving documents, and objects in both private and public collections. The research has uncovered much about the mercantile aristocracy that purchased and used the furniture and about the community of craftsmen who adapted English designs to satisfy their customers' tastes. With essays on the social history of Portsmouth, furniture production in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and entries for 117 objects, the book provides the first comprehensive study of the defining characteristics of Portsmouth furniture from 1670 to 1840.