Sold to a private collector
Chippendale Carved Mahogany Secretary Bookcase
Attributed to Job Townsend or John Goddard
Newport, RI, circa 1740-1760
H. 8'2", W. 39", D. 22"
Literature: Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture (1950), p. 158.
Courtesy of Heller Washam Antiques;
image courtesy Sotheby's, Inc.

This Queen Anne Newport secretary displays many of the hallmarks present on the finer furniture from this dynamic crafts community: elegant, slender proportions; paneled tympanum; fluted finial; and a distinctive shell-carved interior with a fitted well, a feature that reinforces its early date.

The form and design of this piece, with its tall bracket feet and arched doors, most closely relates to a Job Townsend labeled flat-top secretary in the collection of the Rhode Island School of Design (see Monkhouse and Michie [1986], no. 86; Moses [1984], fig. 6.1). The carved birds that embellish the lopers are present on a select group of Newport furniture associated with the shops of Job Townsend and John Goddard (Moses, figs. 7.5, 4.1.4.2).