Proof, Attribution And A Pear Tree
The most compelling discovery for the author involved the statues at Cliveden, the Philadelphia home of the Chew family. The estate had been victim to the Battle of Germantown in 1777, and a 1780 medal memorializing the event for the British victors depicts the Cliveden statues knocked off their pedestals. It has been assumed that the statues now standing on the grounds were early reproductions, for Cliveden in 1779 had been sold outside the family, only to be resold to its original owner, Judge Benjamin Chew, by that purchaser 18 years later.
A 1791 letter, written by Mrs Chew’s sister, has served as the proof of this assumption, for it briefly mentions, "The things of that sort [decayed statues & pieces of marble] given … to Mr and Mrs Chew went to the purchaser of their house near Germantown."
Israel interprets the letter as proof that the statues could well be the originals, as everything was resold to the Chews six years after the letter was written. An examination of the statues themselves, and the state of their decay, leads the author to describe two of the four statue fragments currently standing as "Eighteenth Century interpretations of the antique," while describing the remaining examples as "perhaps the only extant garden ornament in America to have been silent witnesses to a battle of the American Revolution."
The author also clears up some confusion surrounding the dating assigned to sets of cast iron lyre-back armchairs by Robert Wood, similar to those in the collection of The Highlands in Fort Washington, Pa. William J. Hornor, Jr’s Blue Book of Philadelphia Furniture gives the accepted date of The Highlands’ armchair as 1804, since the chair is marked "Robert Wood." But Israel writes, "Wood’s business on Ridge Road in Philadelphia did not begin production until 1839," and further that the 1804 date "may have been… a simple reversal of digits – turning 1840 into 1804," a kind of cast iron typo.
Regarding the misattribution and reattribution of works by Fiske and Mott (Israel is currently working on an article about Fiske for The Magazine Antiques), the author strongly states there is "no attributing garden ornament unless you absolutely know the provenance, or you can attribute it on the basis of a design shown in [one of the maker’s] catalogues."
"These designs were not made by one maker," she continues. "Fiske and Mott and Robert Wood all made them. If it is not stamped, there is no way to tell [a piece’s origin]. Cast iron is a manufactured product, and I feel that it is important to understand what you can and cannot know about it. And Fiske was not an iron founder, he was a manufacturer. He only made his own weathervanes."
These and other discoveries presented in Antique Garden Ornament, too numerous and complex to be discussed here, could set dealers and collectors on their ears. But they will certainly serve to eliminate what some perceive as an overabundance of smoke and mirrors surrounding the garden ornament business.
The author’s favorite story, one she found too endearing to pass up for publication despite its superfluity, involves one of the oldest sundial plates in the US. It is a 1630 brass example made for Governor John Endecott by William Bowyer, the English maker, who calibrated it for Salem, Mass.’s latitude —Endecott’s future residence. Shortly before Endecott received the sundial, he also imported from England a rare pear tree. One hundred and sixty years later, a layman historian and pastor, the Reverend William Bentley of Salem, checked on the condition of both the sundial and the tree, still owned by descendants of Endecott, the tree still bearing fruit. Bentley seems to have become enamored with both and concerned for their welfare, eventually purchasing the sundial from an heir for $3 in 1810.
Bentley then sent propagation twigs from the tree to a friend, former President John Adams, and in 1867 the dial was donated to the Peabody-Essex Institute in Salem (then the Essex Institute).
"I love the sundial story," says Israel. "But I want to know what happened to the pear tree!" She hopes someone involved with the Adams archives can tell her.