| Among the Federal renovations in the dining room are the triple-sash
windows, which led onto a piazza (since removed); the alcove; the graining,
on the closet door. and the fireplace surround. The latter was rediscovered
in the attic and reinstalled in the recent restoration. See also the frontispiece.
The fireboard is a copy of one from the Fowler House of 1808 in Danversport.
-Massachusetts (in the collection of the Society-for the Preservation of
New England Antiquities. Boston). The mahogany and mahogany-veneered center
table was probably made in Boston, 1815-1830. The French (or possibly Russian)
marble-topped pier table in the alcove, 1810--1825, is mahogany and mahogany-veneer
with gilt-bronze mounts. On the table French porcelain and gilt- and silvered-bronze
candlesticks, 1800-1825, flank a gilt-bronze shelf clock with a figure of
George Washington, c. 1800. It is stamped "Dubue, Rue Michel-le- Comte No.
33 à Paris." The set of twelve mahogany and mahogany-veneered side chairs,
c. 1830, was probably bought in Boston by Barnabas Hedge (1764-1840) of
Plymouth, Massachusetts. Both paintings in the room were brought to the
United States by the 1830's and typify Boston taste of the period: above
the mantel hangs Classical Landscape signed and dated "P-J Boquet 1816,"
possibly by Pierre Jean Bocquet (1751-1817); above the pier table is Blind
Man's Bluff, in the manner of Jean Baptiste Pater (1695-1736), late eighteenth
century, in a frame probably by John Doggett (1780-1857) of Roxbury. The
brussels carpet was reproduced from point papers of 1800-1810 in the collection
of the manufacturer. Woodward and Grosvenor of Kidderminster, England. |
