$6,900
Federal Mahogany Veneer Linen Press, Boston, 1820-25, the three-part piece includes a veneered entablature with a central rectangle outlined in stringing above a veneered frieze and recessed panel doors which open to five pull-out drawers with shaped sides on a lower case with molding and three cockbeaded drawers on flaring high bracket feet, with inlaid escutcheons and original brass, (feet have restoration, surface imperfections), ht. 83 1/2, wd. 48, dp. 22 1/4, base dp. 23 3/4 in. Provenance: Descended in the family of Kirk Boott (1790-1830), a Boston merchant who in 1822 was appointed the first agent of the Merrimack Company to oversee every aspect of the industrial and community development of Lowell, Massachusetts. He is credited with the economic success of Lowell as an important textile producing city. Boott collected a number of pieces of furniture for his house in Bowdoin Square, Boston. His daughter Francis married William Wells who conducted a school at their home in Cambridge on Brattle Street, at the corner of Fayerweather. Among his pupils were James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Their daughter, Francis Boott Wells, married the Reverend William Newell in 1835. They and their children lived in the Brattle Street home with the family furniture. Reverend Newell was the minister of the First Parish Church in Cambridge for forty years. Their daughter married James Moore and the furniture has remained in the Moore family to this day.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2001-02-24
