Colonial Expressions in the Georgian Era

Rococo Reimagined, 1755-1790

As with the late baroque style, the rococo mode was adopted outside of Boston and Salem in an individualistic manner.

Elements of the style often persisted in this furniture until 1800 or even a few years beyond, long after it had mostly gone out of fashion and been supplanted by the neoclassical style in the seaport towns. Rococo furniture from the hinterlands often displays a robust and expressive sense of design and ornament that elevates it to a high level of artistic expression.

In western Massachusetts and Connecticut, “scallop-top” furniture was fashioned by cabinetmakers in many towns during the last few decades of the century.
These pieces featured tops with dramatic, undulating, wavy borders. As in other periods, furniture from the Massachusetts portions of the Connecticut Valley is understood most fully in the context of related objects made in adjacent parts of Connecticut and northern New England.

Selected Bibliography

• Brown, Michael K. “Scallop-top Furniture of the Connecticut Valley.” Antiques 117, no. 5 (May 1980): 1092-1099.
• Hosley, William N., Jr., and Gerald W.R. Ward, eds. The Great River: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820. Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985. (See esp. essay on furniture by Philip Zea.)
• Jobe, Brock, Jack O’Brien, and Gary R. Sullivan. Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850. Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2009.