Description:
Bowfront mahogany sideboard with six turned and reeded legs made by William Lloyd (1779-1845), the son of John Jr. and Marianna Wright Lloyd of Springfield. The sideboard features Lloyd's February 16, 1811 label, ornamented with a Classical sideboard, card table and bureau, pasted inside the proper left cabinet on the wall of the partition: "William Lloyd,/Cabinetmaker,/Acquaints the public and his customers,/that he carries on the Cabinet-Making Busi-/ness half a mile north of the Meeting-House/in Springfield, where he had all kinds of/CHERRY and MAHOGANY WORK,/low as at any shop in the county. Those who/please to favour him with their custom may de-/pend on having their work done with neatness/and dispatch. Country produce taken in payment, or approv-/ed credit if desired. Springfield, Feb. 16, 1811./N. B. All kinds of CHAIRS made as low as/any shop in this county - price from 7 to 9 dol-/lars per set, handsomely ornamented./Old chairs mended and painted." Probably early nineteenth-century Springfield's most successful cabinetmaker, Lloyd's early training is still a mystery, but he was in business by 1802; the range of quality in design and technology demonstrates that he operated an urban shop which employed several itinerant journeymen and apprentices before he closed around 1820. He produced a wide variety of forms in the Federal style, several of which are in this collection, including elegant clock cases (53.092.1), bookcases, desks (1998.31), sideboards (1998.32), bureaus (96.031), dining tables, and card tables (probably 0423). Other examples are owned by the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum and Old Sturbridge Village. The earlier furniture is better made than the later examples that rely heavily on numerous glue blocks for their rigidity. Some chests of drawers with his 1811 label are joined rather than dovetailed; the carcasses lack bottoms in the manner of seventeenth-century furniture. This sideboard represents Lloyd's later standardized workmanship, achieved with consistent materials and practices. The ornamentation is confined to the turned and reeded legs, and conservative inlaid stringing and lozenges, which was inexpensive to execute. The experimental eccentricity of his 1801 bureau (96.031) is now gone; the even craftmenship on this piece suggests that Lloyd did most of the work himself. The sideboard has an oblong top with shaped corners over a carcass with three conforming drawers with brass bail handles (not original) and ivory escutcheons. The center long drawer is over a pair of doors highlighted with astragal stringing; the two side short drawers are each over a similarly-decorated single door; the tops of the four front posts are highlighted with an inlaid lozenge.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1998.32 |
