Domestic Furnishings - Overview
Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.
The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.
"Domestic Furnishings - Overview" showing 39 items.
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A Banjo Clock
- Description
- In 1802 Simon Willard (1753-1848) of Boston obtained a U.S. patent for a timepiece as original as it was successful. The banjo clock, nicknamed for its characteristic shape, established the independence of American clockmaking from European traditions. Its design was perfect from the beginning. Vast numbers have been manufactured without notable modification, and its production continues today.
- Willard's banjo clock was a lightly built, compact wall timekeeper, about three feet tall, accurate and dependable. It was economical to produce, graceful in appearance, and usually lacked hour-striking and alarm mechanisms. Weight-driven, it contained a small brass movement similar to that of the Massachusetts shelf clock, but further reduced in size and weight. The movement had been calculated so that a small drop of the weight (only fifteen inches as compared to about six feet for a tall case clock) would keep it running for eight days. For ease of maintenance, its pendulum was hung in front of the movement, not behind, as in tall case or Massachusetts shelf clocks, an arrangement that American clockmakers soon widely adopted.
- Several thousand banjo clocks were probably built in Simon Willard's own shop. But he also freely permitted his numerous clockmaking relatives, former apprentices, and other clockmakers to produce according to his design. The signature on the banjo clock pictured here is that of Willard's brother Aaron (1757-1844). The timepiece features an unusual alarm arrangement on top of the case. The mahogany case itself is singularly plain compared to Aaron Willard's brightly painted and gilded pieces.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1830
- maker
- Willard, Aaron
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.009
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.009
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
A Massachusetts Shelf Clock, Aaron Willard, about 1820
- Description
- Certain factors peculiar to the American colonies guided the inventive activities of colonial clockmakers. Brass, the customary material for clock movements, was expensive. The market for large, complex, and costly clocks was small; people wanted inexpensive, reliable timekeepers. American clockmakers responded by substituting wood for brass, designing radically new case styles, and introducing mass production.
- The shelf clock, a distinctly American design, fitted conditions in the colonies perfectly. The Massachusetts shelf clock, or half clock, was developed in the 1770s, with the Boston area's Willard brothers playing leading roles. Massachusetts clockmakers continued to produce it for about half a century thereafter. It was in essence a tall case clock with the trunk left out, consisting only of a hood and base about three feet tall. Its brass movement resembled the traditional tall case movement, only simplified and much reduced in size.
- The specimen shown is marked "Aaron Willard/Boston." Like his older brothers Benjamin and Simon, Aaron Willard (1757-1844) moved from the family homestead in Grafton, Massachusetts, to Boston around 1780, where he became a prolific and prosperous clockmaker. He retired in 1823 and turned his business over to his son Aaron, Jr. The clock is of a design that Aaron produced late in his career and apparently in considerable numbers. The clock is an eight-day "timepiece," that is, a timekeeper without the means to strike the hours. Instead it has an alarm mechanism that creates a rousing noise by rapping the inside of the wooden case.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1820
- maker
- Willard, Aaron
- ID Number
- ME*318993
- catalog number
- 318993
- accession number
- 236079
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Vase
- Description
- This tall vase, made around 1900 at the Grueby Faience Company in Boston MA, represents well the influence of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic in American pottery. Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts, established in 1897, promoted a return to handcraft production, based on the model of English reformers like William Morris and John Ruskin who sought harmony of form, decoration, and function, and an enhanced satisfaction with the handcraft tradition as an alternative to mechanical mass production.
- William Grueby (1867-1925) was a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Beginning in 1894 his Grueby Faience Company manufactured architectural tiles and terracotta moldings for the building trade, products which received favorable publicity. Illustrated in the magazine House Beautiful in December 1898, vases were a later addition to the company’s output. The designer of the Grueby vases was silversmith George Prentiss Kendrick, but William Grueby himself developed a novel range of matt glazes. The dark green version on this vase, “like the deepest green of a very dark melon,” invites us to touch the surface. The Grueby matt green glaze became a hallmark for the company’s art pottery.
- The potter’s wheel was the only mechanical device used in the making of the Grueby vessels. Until he left the company in 1902 George Kendrick supervised the shaping of vessels on the wheel from his designs. He also supervised a team of workers who applied the plant motifs that form a relief over which the glaze breaks to reveal the light clay color underneath. Most of these modelers were young women trained in the Boston art schools.
- Since the 1870s, Boston’s wealthy and civic minded elite encouraged reform in the visual arts through education, especially through its Museum of Fine Arts three-dimensional design and decoration program, and the state run Massachusetts Normal Art School, which offered training for the art industries. Art education brought employment opportunities to an increasing number of women, and their work underpinned the American Arts and Crafts movement in enterprises such as the Cincinnati Pottery Club, the Rookwood Pottery, and Tiffany Studios, long before William Grueby began to produce his vases. Grueby Faience Company modelers frequently applied a mark of identification to a vessel, but their work was not acknowledged in exhibition catalogues.
- Grueby exhibited at the major world expositions, winning awards at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle that brought his pottery to the attention of the European market. A vase of this model was on exhibition there. Promotions by the Paris dealer Samuel Bing identified Grueby’s pottery with European art nouveau. In the United States Grueby collaborated with Tiffany & Co., most notably in the making of lamp stands, which emphasized a connection with the art nouveau style. However, in his collaboration with the furniture maker Gustav Stickley, it is Grueby’s roots in the American Arts and Crafts movement that predominate.
- William Grueby acknowledged the influence of the French potter Auguste Delaherche (1857-1940) on the development of his ceramics, and it is not hard to see prototypes among Delaherche’s work for several Grueby vessels, including this vase. Delaherche’s work provided Grueby and Kendrick with a sound model, but from that base they later produced vessels with a distinctive character of their own, especially in the glazed and modeled surfaces. In 1902, a contemporary critic, Walter Ellsworth Gray, wrote an article in Brush and Pencil that described Grueby’s wares of a type “not…designed to catch the fancy of those who delight in excessive ornamentation, high or varied colors, or elaborate patterns. It is a pottery rather that appeals to those who are fond of simplicity of design and rich but subdued monotones.”
- Grueby’s architectural moldings and tiles were made from a robust type of clay obtained from New Jersey and Martha’s Vineyard, and he used the same material for the pottery vessels. Consequently, this monumental vase is heavy, but stable, and its sturdiness affirms the handmade characteristics of Grueby wares. A strong tactile quality in the matt glaze that rolls over the surface of the vase refers us to the organic world of plant and vegetable, and at the turn of the twentieth century consumers found these qualities of harmony in form and surface immensely appealing. However, Grueby’s pots were expensive, and like most of the products of the Arts and Crafts movement, only affluent members of society could purchase these items for their homes.
- Date made
- 1899-1910
- date made
- 1899
- maker
- Grueby Pottery
- ID Number
- 2007.0182.01
- accession number
- 2007.0182
- catalog number
- 2007.0182.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Boston and Sandwhich Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- Deming Jarves found the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company in Sandwich, Massachusetts in 1825, after leaving the New England Glass Company. The wares of these two companies can be easily confused as they shared owners, employees and managers.
- This Boston and Sandwich Glass Company paperweight encases a twelve-petal red and white Poinsettia with a green and white center Rose. It was made by glassworker Nicolas Lutz.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1852-1880
- maker
- Boston & Sandwich Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.109
- catalog number
- 60.109
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- The New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded about 1818 by Deming Jarves along with three wealthy businessmen, and probably began producing paperweights by the mid 1850s. In 1888 the business moved to Ohio, under the name Libbey Glass Company.
- This New England Glass Company faceted paperweight features a dark-blue double Clematis.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1880
- maker
- New England Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.110
- catalog number
- 60.110
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- The New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded about 1818 by Deming Jarves along with three wealthy businessmen, and probably began producing paperweights by the mid 1850s. In 1888 the business moved to Ohio, under the name Libbey Glass Company.
- An upright Dahlia in blue, orange, and yellow above a white latticinio (latticework) ground decorates this New England Glass Company paperweight.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1880
- maker
- New England Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.119
- catalog number
- 60.119
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- The New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded about 1818 by Deming Jarves along with three wealthy businessmen, and probably began producing paperweights by the mid 1850s. In 1888 the business moved to Ohio, under the name Libbey Glass Company.
- This rare New England Glass Company paperweight features a triple posy on a red, white, and blue swirl over an opaque white ground.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1880
- maker
- New England Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.121
- catalog number
- 60.121
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- The New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded about 1818 by Deming Jarves along with three wealthy businessmen, and probably began producing paperweights by the mid 1850s. In 1888 the business moved to Ohio, under the name Libbey Glass Company.
- This New England Glass Company paperweight feature an three cane flower on an irregular white latticinio (latticework) basket ground, and blue canes with a running dog silhouette in white.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1878
- maker
- New England Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.122 [dup1]
- catalog number
- 60.122
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Boston & Sandwich Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- Deming Jarves found the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company in Sandwich, Massachusetts in 1825, after leaving the New England Glass Company. The wares of these two companies can be easily confused as they shared owners, employees and managers.
- This Boston & Sandwich Company paperweight is decorated with a vase of pink and white Roses against a pink, red, and white swirl latticinio (latticework) ground.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1880
- maker
- Boston & Sandwich Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*60.158
- catalog number
- 60.158
- accession number
- 211475
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
New England Glass Company Paperweight
- Description (Brief)
- In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
- Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
- The New England Glass Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts was founded about 1818 by Deming Jarves along with three wealthy businessmen, and probably began producing paperweights by the mid 1850s. In 1888 the business moved to Ohio, under the name Libbey Glass Company.
- A collection of four yellow and salmon colored pears and five cherries rests on a latticinio (latticework) background in this New England Glass Company paperweight.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1852-1880
- maker
- New England Glass Company
- ID Number
- CE*65.485
- catalog number
- 65.485
- accession number
- 264964
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center