A PAIR OF FEDERAL FIGURED BIRCH-INLAID CHERRYWOOD AND TURNED MAPLE TILT-TOP CANDLESTANDS

Adorned with individualistic geometric inlay and turned ornament, this pair of stands reveals the talents and inventiveness of rural New England cabinetmakers in the early nineteenth century. The use of both cherrywood and maple as primary woods further betrays its non-urban origins, and the birch inlay suggests a Northern New England source. Although the broken-column inlaid designs on the tops were popular in a number of areas, they are often associated in a New Hampshire context with Levi Bartlett (1784-1864). Born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, Bartlett had a brief cabinetmaking career in Concord before moving to Boston and becoming a merchant in 1809. He worked with cabinetmaker Hubbard C. Gale (1780-1805) in Concord and, after Gale's death, purchased his shop while opening a second shop in Salisbury in 1806. Interestingly, part of Bartlett's label reads "Mahogany, Cherry and Birch Furniture," thus including two of the woods found on these stands (John F. Page, "Documented New Hampshire Furniture," 1750-1850, The Magazine Antiques (May 1979), p. 1009, pl. VI). For closely related octagonal-top stands, see Northeast Auctions, 6 August 2000, lot 754 and 11-12 November 2000, lot 675. These stands descended together to Ida Clough (d. 1935), a descendant of Jonathan Clough, Jr. (1764-1850) of Epping, New Hampshire. Subsequently, each descended in different branches of the family until reunited in 1994 upon their acquisition by Leigh Keno American Antiques. According to family history, the stands were made as gifts for Jonathan's twin sons, Joseph (1804-1860) and Benjamin (1804-1836).