Behind the Victorian Mask, a Federal Dandy

Secretary Desk as found

Not every Victorian is as dowdy as they might seem. Last year, at the Warner House in Portsmouth NH, we began to plan the exhibit for the next 2-year cycle and a larger curatorial re-assessment of the interior. The main exhibit will be Celebrations: Public and Private, but the other project was to recreate a c 1760 bedchamber, based on paint analysis and recorded wall hangings in Portsmouth—a city with a penchant for damask wallpaper in the 18^thcentury. There has been no physical work done to this room since roughly 1932 when the house became a museum. 

Researching one aspect of a collection invariably leads to other parts of the collection. A case in point, no pun intended, was a large secretary/bookcase sitting in a Victorian bedchamber. It was a family piece that through descent was given to the museum. No matter where it was placed, it exuded a dark and foreboding presence. The glass doors reflected and absorbed light in large quantities and the base simply absorbed light. With its turned wooden handles it looked like a transitional piece from the 1830s or 40s.  One of the handles was removed to see if there were any clues to surface discoloration or handle replacement. Sure enough, the exposed surface was lighter and there was a ring burn where a brass rosette once sat. All the handles were removed and the results were the same. 

With new and old brasses

Additionally an owner’s name was found in the correct script that placed it closer to the 1810-1820 period; this placed it in the house during the appropriate period for family that once owned it. Furniture fashions change and the piece was improved at some point to reflect the sensibilities of the Victorian era. Through research new brasses were found, ordered and installed. The case was lightly cleaned to remove old wax and dirt, which then revealed some of the lightly figured wood. Oddly a finial from the 1810-1820 period, that fit no other piece of furniture and had no known history, was found in the attic and the shaft fit the hole in the central pier of the upper case. (Serendipity? Perhaps.) The interior of the doors showed that they had been lined with fabric at one time. So new green taffeta silk lining curtains where made to complete the piece. The new and old brasses return reflected light to the base and the pinnacle and act as a counterpoint to the glass doors, just as the green silk provides a complimentary color counterpoint to the reddish mahogany.

With silk lining and brasses in natural light

The secretary/bookcase will now sit in the downstairs parlor with several other pieces of early 19^thcentury and be part of the post Lafayette dinner celebration for the 2-year exhibit. 

Jeffrey Hopper is the director of the Warner House (www.warnerhouse.org)

A Perfect June Afternoon for a Costume Tea

The 4th annual costume tea, held June 10th, 2107, at the Warner House in Portsmouth, NH was a success and a delight. If you missed it this year, hopefully you will be able to join us in 2018!

A few photos from the afternoon...

For more www.WarnerHouse.org 

Captain Archibald and Lady Sarah Macpheadris invite you to join them at their grand home...

Captain Archibald and Lady Sarah Wentworth Macpheadris invite you to join them for an afternoon entertainment celebrating the ongoing 300^th anniversary of the construction of their grand house, on June 10, 2017 from 12:00 to 3:00, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

To commemorate this event, we have set the principal rooms at a gastronomic moment in history—evening dining from 1720s-1910s —business repasts of the early and late 18^th century—even a nineteenth century children’s hour!

To enhance your experience, garments laden with stories—such as ladies shoes and dresses, and even Jonathan Warner’s plum-red coat and vest—will be laid out in the rooms in anticipation of its wearer’s return.

At 2 PM, members of the Royal Scottish Country Dancers will perform simple dances for your edification and ask you to join them.

There will be light refreshments and croquet. Rumor has it that several guests have created new fashions for this event.

Please join us for this special year with the house appointed to entertain you as it has for countless past guests. This has become our annual fete.

For further information about the Warner House please visit their website www.warnerhouse.org

Archibald MacPheadris and His Room: A Baroque Merchant's House, 1716

Ascending the stairs

Archibald Macpheadris built his house on the shores of the Piscataqua River in 1716. The house is a fine example of a London style late baroque merchant’s house—rare enough in England, but exceptional in the United States.  Over time, the processional essence of that world has been lost, but in anticipation of the 300^th anniversary of the building of the house an attempt has been made to remember and display how that theatrical world influenced, but did not wholly shape the present. A mode of life that was taken for granted disappeared in a historic instant—leaving only the rooms that accommodated the private/public stage of the everyday.

Talk & Cheese

Over the centuries this small chamber has been used as a bedroom, closet and in this example, its earliest use, as a study, or private chamber. In 1718 this room was at the heart of the public area of the house. Guests were entertained on the second floor in both the “smalt” room with its sprung floor for music and dancing and in the southwest bedchamber, where the most important guests were received. Due to its location and size, this room provided Macpheadris with a private study near his family, a place to instruct and engage his business staff, to display special wares and exotic items from his travels for his clients, and a separate area for his role as a member of the King’s council for New Hampshire.

Silk & Wool & Mat

This small room was a microcosm and center of Macpheadris’s mercantile world—poised between the early period of colonization and the growing prosperity of the eighteenth century. It was a world comprised of English wool, glass, furniture, engravings and pewter, Asian ceramics, a chest of drawers from nearby Saco, Maine, Virginian tobacco, Irish cheese, Spitalfields’ silk from London, woven mats, from the Mediterranean, and Port and Madeira from the Iberian Peninsula.  This was the British Atlantic world of the early eighteenth century and Macpheadris and other Portsmouth merchants were active participants in it.

Clay & Wood

The room was pivotally located so that with the door open it overlooked the social center of the house. With its turned balcony, walls decorated with murals, and a large weight-balanced glazed window it was a space of determined urban sophistication. To complete the impression, in 1718 the view looking across the street through the room’s front window would have included the gardens and large wooden shop, warehouse and guest quarters that sat next to it. Anyone entertained in this room would have understood Macpheadris’s social standing and aspirations. However, styles changed. When his daughter, Mary, and new husband, Jonathan Warner, took possession of the house in 1760, this room and all the others on the second floor retreated forever into the private household.

Passing Scenes of Importance, Once Meaningful, Now Obscure

Jeff Hopper manages historic properties and writes about history, architecture and clothing, among other things. 

Symposium: "Life and Death in the Piscataqua Region," Portsmouth, NH

Portsmouth Historic Sites Associates 12^th annual Winter Symposium,

"Life and Death in the Piscataqua Region"

Saturday, February 6, 2016

10AM to 3PM

St. John’s Masonic Temple,

351 Middle Street (the corner of Miller Avenue and Middle Street)

Portsmouth NH 03801

Tickets reserved in advance are $15;

$20 at the door the day of the event

(though organizers advise that the event fills up quickly)

The ticket price includes the day-long program of four lectures, continental breakfast

and a lunch of homemade soup, bread and dessert.

This year’s program includes:       

Elizabeth Aykroyd. “The HMS America: Building a Royal Navy Ship of the Line in Portsmouth,” on the story of this ship, a model of which was the first artifact acquired by the Portsmouth Athenaeum in 1820, and its connection to the New England expedition against Louisbourg in 1745 represents an important chapter in the history of mid-eighteenth century Portsmouth. 

Jeff Hopper and Sandra Rux, “Revealing the Warner House,” presenting new research in celebration of the 300^th birthday of the Warner House. 

                                   
Peter Michaud “A National Register District for Portsmouth,” on the progress of the National Register nomination, and what it will mean for Portsmouth.
                                   
Janet Polasky. “Undocumented Cosmopolitans in Revolutionary New England,” draws from Polasky’s research for her new book Revolutions without Borders:  the Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World.               

The annual event, a fund-raiser for the Portsmouth Historic Sites Associates, will also include a preview of upcoming events for history lovers, a raffle, and sales tables including some from member sites:  Historic New England; Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden, Portsmouth Historical Society (John Paul Jones House); Strawbery Banke; The Gundalow Company; USS Albacore Museum, Warner House, Wentworth Lear Association, and the Wentworth Coolidge Mansion.

The Portsmouth Historic Sites Associates partners centuries-old historic homes and vessels, some of the most important in America. Within the architectural treasures, a multitude of rooms with authentic antique furnishings reveal poignant stories of home and work in a thriving seaport community, while the historic vessels detail chapters of Portsmouth’s history afloat.

For more information go to: www.portsmouthhistorichouses.org, or visit us at Portsmouth Historic Houses on Facebook.  For more information, or to reserve a space at this year’s event, call (603) 436-8221. 

Exhibition - "Cosmopolitan Consumption: New England Shoe Stories, 1750-1850"

            In early New England, the significance of shoes extended beyond function alone.  New Englanders prized, celebrated, and displayed their shoes as markers of fashionable style and genteel sensibility. They also refreshed, altered and revamped them, making repairs as long as the leather was still good.

            The exhibition Cosmopolitan Consumption: New England Shoe Stories, held at the Portsmouth Athenaeum, is a rich exploration of New Englanders and their shoes.  We will introduce viewers to lives of figures both prominent and middling, through both stunning and well-worn examples of this significant American accessory.  Viewers will explore the process of how shoes were made, sold, and worn in New England, 1750-1850.

            Through the lives and letters of clever apprentices, skilled cordwainers, wealthy merchants and elegant brides, Cosmopolitan Consumption will take us on a journey from bustling London streets, to ship cargo holds, to New England shops and, ultimately, to the feet of eager consumers throughout the region. The “shoe stories” recount a young bride dancing with George Washington during his visit to Portsmouth or a lady attending a ball for Marquis de Lafayette; they trace the fortunes and misfortunes of wearers as shoes were altered to accommodate poor health and changing styles, and finally, they provide glimpse into the shoemaking business of artisans like Sam Lane of Stratham, who sold his shoes at Market Square in Portsmouth. This rich shoemaking heritage continues today. We ask our viewers to consider how these fashionable shoes reveal the hopes and dreams of New Englanders.

            The “shoe stories” will be told via approximately 25-35 pairs of shoes, pumps, and mules from numerous local, regional and private collections. Many of the shoes have never before been on display, making this a destination exhibition.

            An active program series is planned, including gallery talks, special lectures by leaders in the field, a “shoe shopping” event and hands-on workshops. Funding is currently being sought for a catalog and conference. The opportunity for community outreach and engagement at all age groups is especially strong.

            Held at the Portsmouth Athenaeum (www.PortsmouthAthenaeum.org), Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the exhibition will open on Valentine’s Day, February 14th 2015 and be on view through late May 2015.

Curatorial Team:

Kimberly Alexander, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, Co-Curator

ksalex10@aol.com

Sandra Rux, Curator, Portsmouth Historical Society, Co-Curator

sandra@comcast.net

Tom Hardiman, Keeper, Portsmouth Athenaeum

Elise Daniel, Graduate Student Intern, UNH

Meaghan Reddick, Research Associate

Image:

Galerie des Modes, 1778

KSAM/v.2