Enfilade

Now on view at the Massachusetts Historical Society:

Entrepreneurship and Classical Design in Boston’s South End: The Furniture of Isaac Vose and Thomas Seymour, 1815–1825
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 11 May — 14 September 2018

Virtually forgotten for 200 years, Isaac Vose and his brilliant furniture are revealed in a new exhibition and accompanying volume. Beginning with a modest pair of collection boxes he made for his local Boston church in 1788, Vose went on to build a substantial business empire and to make furniture for the most prominent Boston families. The exhibition and catalog restore Vose from relative obscurity to his rightful position as one of Boston’s most important craftsmen.

Robert Mussey and Clark Pearce, Rather Elegant Than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose (Boston: David R Godine, 2018), 312 pages, ISBN: 978-1567926194, $50.

C O N T E N T S

Dennis M. Fiori
Foreword

Robert D. Mussey, Jr.
• Introduction: Isaac Vose Forgotten, Rediscovered
• Early Career and Partnerships, 1788–1819
• Boston’s Classical Style Matures: The Salisbury Group
• The Global Elite: Vose & Son and the World of Imports
• Demanding the Finest
• A Hero Returns, an Era Ends

Clark Pearce
• By These Signs You Will Know Them: Connoisseurship and Construction of Vose Furniture

Appendix 1: Labeled, Signed, and Documented Furniture by Isaac Vose
Appendix 2: Vose’s Partners, Journeymen, Subcontractors, and Apprentices

Index
Colophon