Description:
Rectangular server or dressing table in oak with an overhanging conforming top with one long drawer and three small ones. The center features a large carved shell. The case sits on four cabriole legs terminating in trifid pad feet. It was made by Dr. Edwin Cyrus Thorn (1874-1920) with the help of Dr. A. Louis Petty and Caleb Allen (1861-1927). Dr. Thorn, one of two doctors in Deerfield, and his wife, Luanna A. (Franklin) Thorn (1874-1965), lived on lot 26, which Luanna bought in 1905 and is now known as the Wells-Thorn House. Both Edwin and Luanna Thorn were very involved with the Deerfield Arts and Crafts Revival movement, which was first formalized as the 'Deerfield Society of Arts and Crafts' in 1899 and then changed to 'Deerfield Industries' in 1907. Spending his spare time as a woodworking hobbyist, Thorn collaborated with other men, including his brother-in-law, Charles Franklin and his neighbor, Caleb Allen (brother of the Deerfield photographers Mary and Frances Allen) to design and build colonial revival furniture. Each summer between 1904 and 1907 he displayed a “lowboy” in the annual exhibition of crafts organized by members of the Deerfield Village Industries. With the help of his brother-in-law, Dr. Pettee, and Caleb Allen, Thorn may have made this “lowboy,” or serving table, for Mary Lyles of Flushing, New York (a cousin of Margaret Whiting, co-founder of Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework). Rather than replicating an eighteenth-century dressing table, Thorn derived this serving table’s outsize proportions from the base of a high chest, and crafted the case and legs from oak, a coarse, dense wood rarely used in eighteenth-century case furniture but favored for Mission-style furniture of the early twentieth century. He colored the piece with a dark brown stain evocative of eighteenth-century taste for “mahoganized” finishes, and mounted brightly polished period brass drawer pulls, resulting in a delightful hybrid of eighteenth and and early twentieth-century design. The server was given to Henry Holton Thorn, Sr., then to his widow, Ina Thorn, then to Henry Holton Thorn, Jr., and then to his widow Marion Thorn, who sold the server to Historic Deerfield.
Label Text:
Serving Table Dr. Edwin Cyrus Thorn (1874-1920) Deerfield, Massachusetts, probably 1904 Oak and brass Mr. and Mrs. Hugh B. Vanderbilt Fund for Curatorial Acquisitions, 1991.049 In 1899, at age 25, Brattleboro, Vermont, native, Dr. Edwin Cyrus Thorn (1874-1920), received his medical degree and moved to Deerfield to open a practice. Spending his spare time as a woodworking hobbyist, Thorn collaborated with other men, including his brother-in-law, Charles Franklin and his neighbor, Caleb Allen (brother of the Deerfield photographers Mary and Frances Allen) to design and build colonial revival furniture. Each summer between 1904 and 1907 he displayed a “lowboy” in the annual exhibition of crafts organized by members of the Deerfield Village Industries. With the help of his brother-in-law, Dr. A. Louis Pettee, and Caleb Allen, Thorn may have made this “lowboy,” or serving table, for Mary Lyles of Flushing, New York (a cousin of Margaret Whiting, co-founder of Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework). Rather than replicating an 18th-century dressing table, Thorn derived this serving table’s outsize proportions from the base of a high chest, and crafted the case and legs from oak, a coarse, dense wood rarely used in 18th-century case furniture but favored for Mission-style furniture of the early 20th century. He colored the piece with a dark brown stain evocative of 18th-century taste for “mahoganized” finishes, and mounted brightly polished period brass drawer pulls, resulting in a delightful hybrid of 18th-century and early 20th-century design.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+91.049 |
