Art: Early regional furniture, divinely diverse

Besides their obvious aesthetic appeal, exhibitions of historical decorative arts serve as explorations in cultural anthropology. They reveal how our forebears solved practical problems of daily living, as well as their material values and tastes.

This was revealed to stunning effect 12 years ago at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in a show called "Worldly Goods," which displayed for our delectation a wide variety of furniture, silver, and other domestic accessories made and used in Pennsylvania from its founding to the middle of the 18th century.

Organized by the museum's then-curator of American decorative arts, Jack L. Lindsey, that exhibition was more than just edifying on a historical and antiquarian level, it was exciting. This is partly because at nearly 600 objects it was huge, more than one could digest in a single viewing.

Now Winterthur, the mother church of American decorative arts, has put together a show that conveys a similar spirit of enthusiastic and satisfying discovery.

Although considerably smaller, at about 160 objects, and more tightly focused to elucidate a different theme, "Paint, Pattern & People" similarly provides fascinating insights into the folkways of Pennsylvania's early decades.

The exhibition has two authors, Wendy A. Cooper, Winterthur's senior curator of furniture, and Lisa M. Minardi, assistant curator of furniture for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Furniture Project.

Their titles refer to two parameters of "Paint, Pattern" - that it's essentially about furniture and that it confines its gaze to 16 counties in the southeastern corner of the state - an area roughly bounded by Carlisle and Gettysburg in the west, Sunbury in the north, Easton on the Delaware River, and Philadelphia and its "home counties."

Chronologically, this show begins a few decades before "Worldly Goods" stopped and continues through 1850. This time span allows the curators to include a strong representation of early furniture made and used by German settlers, little of which dated before the 1760s survives.

Yet the exhibition's signal characteristic is its focus on locally specific furniture forms within the region. The project seeks not only to identify these localisms but also to link specific objects with particular makers and owners. Every object in the show tells a documented story.

As Cooper and Minardi explain in their accompanying book, the exhibition "isn't about dovetails and glue blocks, [but] about what furniture can tell us about the people who made and owned it as well as the culture and craft production of the area in which it originated."

As the generously texted and illustrated installation reveals, this is quite a lot, and not all the information relates directly to furniture.

Both the exhibition and the book begin by reminding us of something we may have only dimly realized, that Pennsylvania was the most culturally diverse of the 13 colonies.

Therefore, the idea of a homogenous "early Pennsylvania style" is out the window from the start. Instead, we get to consider the design and functional proclivities of both English- and German-speaking populations, subdivided by religion into Welsh, Irish and English Quakers, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, Mennonites, Moravians, Lutherans, and German Reformed.

This fragmentation produced a variety of site-specific furniture conventions, both of form and decoration - too many, in fact, to go into here. But a few general characteristics may provide an idea of how the exhibition approaches its objective.

We should begin by observing that "Paint, Pattern" doesn't overwhelm the eye with sumptuous luxury goods, a quality reflected in the woods commonly used - native walnut, cherry, maple, and tulip-poplar.

Imported mahogany was a luxury indulgence. It's most prominent here in two over-the-top high chests, one from Philadelphia, the other, even more elaborately carved, from Lancaster (at the time of its making the largest inland city in the colonies).

From that elegant introduction, the exhibition moves into the countryside with sturdily crafted, primarily utilitarian pieces, things like the imposing clothes cupboards known in German as schranks, small hanging cabinets, various tables and chairs, and the gaily painted chests common in German-speaking households.

There are a number of tall clocks, those by German makers being especially tall and slender, and homely furniture devoted to specific tasks, such as dry sinks and dough troughs, used for mixing dough.

Perhaps the most unusual object is a triangular box used to store a tricorn hat. Like some furniture, the hatbox bears the owner's name, Hugh Boyd of West Nottingham, inlaid in contrasting light wood - holly and sumac were commonly used.

Inlays in wood, metal, or sulfur are one of the two most common methods of decorating the furniture on view; the other, used by German-speakers, was painting.

(Sulfur inlay, believed to have originated in Lancaster County, is achieved by pouring molten sulfur into incised grooves; the sulfur expands as it solidifies, creating a tight fit.)

Another distinctive decorative motif, known as line-and-berry, is believed to have originated in Chester County, and may derive from a Welsh model. Line-and-berry on naturally finished hardwood is usually delicately understated, in contrast to the exuberant and often densely patterned painting on German chests of softer white pine or tulip-poplar.

While most of the exhibits are furniture, the curators have included some paintings (portraits and views of towns and farms) and other objects to provide context.

The most beautiful of the latter are a pair of 18th-century Pennsylvania long rifles, both inscribed and descended in the same family.

The most poignant of these ancillary objects are three carved and painted angel heads that once adorned the cornice of a Lutheran church in Schaefferstown, now Lebanon County. The most unusual is a Moravian corpse tray, used to store bodies temporarily, from a church in Bethlehem.

To appreciate the full significance of these objects, a visitor needs to do a bit of reading, but the effort is rewarded. The handsome installation does a splendid job of filling in the history through texts, labels, and photographs. These shouldn't be glossed over, otherwise the richness of detail that make this exhibition so resonant gets lost.

For the full story, the 304-page book of the same title is invaluable. It's recommended for anyone who wants to penetrate and savor the broad cultural diversity that made Pennsylvania a noble experiment.

"Paint, Pattern & People" continues at Winterthur, 5105 Kennett Pike (Route 52), north of Wilmington, through Jan. 8. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission is $18 general, $16 for visitors 62 and older and students with valid ID, $5 for visitors 2 through 11. Information: 1-800-448-3883. Book published by Winterthur at $55 and distributed by University of Pennsylvania Press.

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