In the days before the proliferation of printed labels, cabinetmakers signed only their best piece. The blocked desk-and-bookcase, circa 1775, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is Gould's only signed piece. It is inscribed "Nath Gould not his work,” but Kemble Widmer and Joyce King discovered that "Nath Gould” is in Gould's hand, while "not his work” is not. It may have been written by Gould's son, also Nathaniel, or by a disgruntled worker. The 105-inch piece was likely the one purchased by Jeremiah Lee for his daughter on the occasion of her marriage.
:The peculiar convergence of curiosity, history, persistence and technology has placed a formerly fairly obscure name in the canon of American furniture masters. In one click of a mouse, the name of Salem cabinetmaker Nathaniel Gould has been established firmly as an Eighteenth Century furniture maker of superb artistry. At the same time, positive attribution of a number of his masterful pieces has been made, and surely there will be more to come.
The unraveling of the mystery of Nathaniel Gould began more than two years ago when antiques dealer Todd Prickett of C.L. Prickett in Yardley, Penn., called on independent furniture scholar Kemble Widmer to research a bombé block front mahogany desk-and-bookcase, circa 1780. That it was a Salem piece was clear; Prickett knew that it related closely to the desk-and-bookcase in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the only known signed Gould piece.
Similar pieces were attributed to another Salem cabinetmaker, Henry Rust. Widmer, who has studied Gould for more than 20 years, said he never believed the Rust attributions, explaining that Rust moved around too much to have had consistent production and relationships. He says that Gould's work is consistent and far superior to that of Rust.
Widmer enlisted the help of Joyce King, a researcher and colleague of more than two decades, who is also a former Salem resident, and the two were off and running.
King performed a couple of Internet searches and Nathaniel Gould's name popped up on the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) website. MHS, established in 1791, has for about ten years been engaged in digitizing its prodigious collections. The Gould link had been online for just a few weeks when King found it. She sent Widmer a note, "This could be important." And it was.
Widmer and King took themselves to the historical society. Two daybooks and one account book kept by Nathaniel Gould were right there in plain sight. These and Gould's estate inventory, noting "oceans of spirits" among his other possessions, were included in the papers of Nathan Dane donated to the historical society in about 1835.
It was Gould's habit to use clock hinges for prospect doors as evinced by the detail view of the desk-and-bookcase at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dane was a lawyer, judge and legislator and member of MHS, and had settled Gould's estate after his death in 1781. For Peter Drummey, librarian of MHS, the confluence of Widmer and King, the resources of the historical society and technology epitomizes research at its best.
Little is known about Gould the man, except that he was the son of one Salem cabinetmaker and the father of another. Born in 1734, the eldest male in his family of five or six siblings and orphaned at 12, he later apprenticed to a Charlestown cabinetmaker, possibly third-generation artisan Thomas Wood. He was back in Salem and had set up as a cabinetmaker in early 1757. In 1760, he married Rebecca Wood, the daughter of Thomas Wood, a third-generation Charlestown cabinetmaker, to whom he may have been apprenticed.
Gould the merchant is another matter entirely. The three books are highly detailed, and as Widmer notes, "There may be a missing ledger, but, otherwise, they document Gould's entire business life." They cover the years 1758 to 1783, with a gap of the years 1763 to 1767, and record Gould's purchases and sales with exquisite and chronological detail of each client, of credit extended, debts paid and barter exchanges. Says Widmer, "Except for the missing book, the ledgers document Gould's entire oeuvre."
