Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

From: Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend, Newport Cabinetmaker (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 161, cat. no. 39 Click the image to enlarge	Desk and bookcase
	Object number RIF1410
	Maker Maker, attributed to John Townsend, American, 1732/33?1809
	Dimensions 98 � 40 � 22 1/2 in. (248.921 � 101.6 � 57.15 cm)
	Date 1760–70
	Current location Private collection
	Geography Made in Newport, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany (primary); mahogany and yellow poplar (secondary)
	Inscriptions "A, B, C, D" in chalk on the outside backboards of large drawers, beginning at the top
	Style Chippendale
	Provenance Jonathan Nichols (1700–1774), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his son Walter Nichols (1748–1823), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his son William Stoddard Nichols (1785–1871), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his son, Thomas Pitman Nicholas (1816–1897), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his son, Othniel Foster Nichols (1845–1908), Brooklyn; by descent to his grandson Foster Nichols Perry (1902–1989), Westerly, Rhode Island, and later Suffield, Connecticut; sold to Israel Sack, Inc., New York, 1972; sold to a private collection
	Associated names Jonathan Nichols William Stoddard Nichols Thomas Pitman Nichols Othniel Foster Nichols Foster Nichols Perry Israel Sack, Inc.
	See also RIF1899
	Bibliography American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, 10 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Highland House Publishers, 1957–1989), vol. 4, pp. 915–917, no. P3555, ill.; vol. 8, p. 2145, ill. "Israel Sack, Inc., advertisement," Antiques 102, no. 1 (July 1972): inside cover, ill. Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 173–174, fig. 3.96, 3.96a, 3.96b. Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (New York: Crown Publishers, 1993), 167, Masterpiece, ill. Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 134–35, no. 29, ill.