'John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker' At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

"In every ordinary sense John Townsend, like virtually all Eighteenth Century American craftsmen, lived his life below the level of historical scrutiny," writes Morrison H. Heckscher, curator of "John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker," on view in the American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art through September 25.

Mr Heckscher had no recourse to sketches or oil portraits, diaries, letters or descriptions by Townsend's contemporaries. It is a tribute to his skill as a scholar, curator and writer that, with the help of research assistant Lori Zabar and field researcher Barbara Glauber, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing has constructed a satisfyingly complete portrait of the cabinetmaker and his Newport milieu.

The curator's study grew out of the close analysis of 34 pieces of signed and dated furniture made between 1756 and 1800 by Townsend, the man most likely responsible for introducing tripartite block and shell and stop-fluted decorative treatments to American furniture.

Forty pieces of furniture made or attributed to the cabinetmaker, plus another 20 examples by his contemporaries, illustrate the arc of Townsend's career, from his cabriole pieces of the 1750s to the iconic block and shell case furniture of the 1760s through 1790s, and the underappreciated Federal forms of the 1790s.