Sofa,

ca. 1795

In 1795, Elias Boudinot IV was appointed director of the United States Mint in Philadelphia. Around that time, he acquired this and another matching sofa, perhaps intending to refurbish his residence in connection with the new position. Few Americans could afford one sofa, let alone two. A sofa’s great cost resulted from the involvement of numerous craftspeople—makers of piecework inlay and veneer, cabinetmakers, and upholsterers—as well as the extensive use of expensive fabric. Only a handful of paired American sofas from the eighteenth century are known. The Boudinot examples are transitional in their design. The serpentine curve of the “camel-back” top rails, reflected in the bow-front seats below, are distinctly Chippendale. By contrast, the lathe-turned front legs, relatively small size of the veneered arms’ end scrolls, and use of decorative inlay are characteristic of later neo-classical furniture, the Greek and Roman antecedents of which resonated with contemporary American ideals.