The architecture, decoration, and furnishings of this room illustrate the transplantation of Germanic traditions in colonial America. During the second quarter of the eighteenth century, large populations of German speaking immigrants from throughout northern and central Europe established agricultural communities in Pennsylvania. They brought with them a variety of domestic forms, designs, skills, and customs. Craftsmen imbued these traditions with new energy and influences, modifying them in each succeeding generation.
The interior woodwork of this Pennsylvania German kitchen was originally part of a two-story rubblestone house that was completed in 1752 for Georg Müller, a prosperous mill owner in Millbach, a small community in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. This traditional interior retains many features from Germanic house types. The massive molded beam construction, square newel post and stair balusters, and raised carved panels and shaped wrought-iron hinges on the doors all have precedents in late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century Germanic design.
Fitted with a large cooking hearth and furnished with work tables, rooms like this served as a center for a wide range of daily household activities.
The house itself is still extant.
On August 7, 1769, two years after extensive travels in England and Europe, Samuel Powel (1738-1793)---heir to a family fortune and future mayor of Philadelphia---married Elizabeth Willing (1742-1830), one of eleven children of a prominent Philadelphia merchant. Only days earlier, Powel had purchased a brick house on Third Street and contracted carpenter-architect Robert Smith (1722-1777) to begin remodeling its interior and, specifically referring to this room, "furnishing a room in my dwelling house." The best room in the house, the second floor front parlor was the scene for a variety of events---card games, teas, and even the dancing that celebrated the twentieth wedding anniversary of George and Martha Washington.
The architectural woodwork and plaster ceiling decoration that here survive from the Powel parlor illustrate the interpretation of the Palladian architectural style, with Rococo embellishments, by colonial Philadelphia artisans and craftsmen. Emerging in France in the early eighteenth century, the Rococo style is characterized by the use of rocaille (rocklike) ornament, leaf and flower motifs, curves and sinuous lines, and alternating C- and S-scrolls. In America, such ornament was superimposed onto molded and carved woodwork in the severe classical style popularized by Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). In Philadelphia, the richest of mid-eighteenth-century colonial cities, the American version of the Rococo found its most complete expression.
The molding and architectural ornament of the room, and the elaborate fireplace surround, were carved by the city's best London-trained woodcarvers, including Hercules Courtenay, who was paid £60 by Powel. Courtenay apprenticed with London carver Thomas Johnson, whose 1761 book of shields and ornaments helped to disseminate the Rococo style throughout the English-speaking world.
Much of the furniture and paintings in this gallery derive from the town house of another distinguished Philadelphia family, the Cadwaladers. Like the Powels, John and Elizabeth Cadwalader were undertaking a major redecoration project for their Philadelphia house in 1770, commissioning the same artisans to execute the interior embellishments and craft the furniture. Unfortunately, the Cadwalader's Second Street house---known to have been the most elegant Rococo interior created in eighteenth-century America, and whose domestic appointments were unrivalled for quality and richness---was torn down in 1816. The sumptuous architecture and ornament of the Powel's front parlor is a fitting space to display the Museum's comprehensive collection of Cadwalader furnishings.
The five paintings on view in this gallery were commissioned by John Cadwalader in 1770 from Maryland-born artist Charles Willson Peale. The ultimate symbol of wealth and status in pre-Revolutionary America, portraits also served as important documents of family order and continuity.
Another room from the Powel House is installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The home can still be visited today.
The architecture and decoration of this room reflect the new interest in the classical age that was kindled by archaeological discoveries in Italy, Greece, and Egypt during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Forms and motifs from ancient art provided the inspiration for the Neoclassical style, which was introduced in England by designer Robert Adam (Scottish, 1728-1792). This new style was characterized by a fondness for simple geometric forms, restrained use of antique ornament, and flat, linear decoration.After the American Revolution, Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, Massachusetts, pioneered trade between the city's merchant-shipowners and Asia. The resulting fortunes made Salem the richest city in New England and a center for the building of opulent mansions in the fashionable Neoclassical style.In about 1800, Elias Derby's son, Ezekiel Hersey Derby, built one such mansion, which was adorned with the ornamental woodwork, plaster frieze, and ceiling medallion now installed here. The handsome three-story, four-bay house was designed by Boston architect Charles Bulfinch. Two-story-high Ionic pilasters decorated the exterior in direct imitation of Robert Adam's design for the Williams-Wynn house in London.
The Museum acquired the woodwork and built-in drawer unit on display in this room when the Shaker north family dwelling--part of the Mount Lebanon, New York, community--was torn down in 1973. These architectural elements were part of a space located in the northeast corner of the second floor called the Sisters' Room, which would have been occupied by two or three women.
Perforations on the inside wall baseboards, the swivel transoms, and numerous windows provided plentiful ventilation and fresh air. The door on the left opened into a large walk-in closet. The wall pegs were used for hanging clothing, implements, and at cleaning time, chairs. The iron stovepipe vented into the chimney and a small iron door at baseboard level opened to allow cleaning of the chimney flue.
The room is furnished with several pieces from the Shaker Mount Lebanon Community, as well as with other objects from Shaker communities throughout New England. All were made during the nineteenth century.
Wharton Esherick’s carved interiors are among his most important early sculptural work. Inspired by the angular shapes and intersecting lines of the Cubist movement, the artist incorporated the natural patterns and grains of assorted woods into his pieces to emphasize their strong geometric and organic forms.
Born in Philadelphia in 1887, Esherick studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1908–10, and discovered wood as a medium for artistic expression when he began to make carved frames for his canvases. By the mid-1920s he was fully committed to sculpture and extended his definition of the medium to the carving of furniture and architectural interiors. His work is often seen as a forerunner to the contemporary studio furniture movement. He received his largest commission in 1935, when Judge Curtis Bok and his wife Nellie Lee Bok hired him to renovate the first-floor interiors of their home in Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania.
The Museum acquired woodwork from the Bok House when it was demolished in 1989. A number of other items from the music room were acquired contemporaneously and later, including a sofa, two fireplace tools, two upholstered chairs, a library ladder, an upholstered armless sofa, and a radio and phonograph cabinet.
A group of architectural elements were removed from the home of Charles T. Parry at 1921 Arch Street before the building was to be demolished in 1968. The museum’s holdings from the house include sections of the exterior entranceway, the complete vestibule, and wainscoting from the central hall. This includes the front entrance doors, vestibule doors, and a pier mirror, console table and another mirror attributed to Daniel Pabst.
The first owner, Charles T. Parry, was the president of Burnham, Parry, Williams and Co., owners of the famous Baldwin Locomotive Works.
This doorframe is from a house once located at 214 South Eighth Street, Philadelphia. Its decoration shows a combination of rococo and Federal motifs often found in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Philadelphia architecture.
The Stamper-Blackwell House was built in 1764 by John Stamper, and later occupied by William Bingham, Stamper's son-in-law; Robert Blackwell, rector of United Churches Of Christ Church and St. Peter's; and the family of Thomas Willing until it was razed around 1930.
In addition to the doorway at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the parlor from this house was installed at the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library.
Barquist, David L. “‘The Interior Will Be as Interesting as the Exterior Is Magnificent’: American Period Rooms at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): 139–60. https://doi.org/10.1086/668630.
Barquist, David L. “Kitchen from the Müller House, Millbach, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, 1752.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E1–11. https://doi.org/10.1086/668631.
Jeanes, Joseph Y., Collector. Rev. Dr. Blackwell House, south side Pine St. above 2nd St. Pennsylvania Philadelphia, ca. 1870. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016649510/.
Kirtley, Alexandra Alevizatos. “Front Parlor from the Powel House, Philadelphia, 1769–70.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E12–23. https://doi.org/10.1086/668632.
Lahikainen, Dean Thomas. “The Derby Room from the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House, Salem, Massachusetts, 1798–1799.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E24–36. https://doi.org/10.1086/668453.
Muzio, David de. “Wharton Esherick’s Music Room from the Curtis Bok House, Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, 1935–1938.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E58–74. https://doi.org/10.1086/668642.
Nicoletta, Julie. “Sisters’ Retiring Room from the North Family Dwelling, Mount Lebanon, New York, ca. 1845.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E37–43. https://doi.org/10.1086/668452.
Cynthia V. A. Schaffner, "Powel Room, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1765–66." American Wing Period Rooms. Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/the-american-wing/period-rooms/powel-room.
Zwilling, Jennifer A. “Interior Woodwork from 1921 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Built 1871, Renovated Pre-1885.” Winterthur Portfolio 46, no. 2/3 (2012): E44–57. https://doi.org/10.1086/668451.
