Dressing Box with Swinging Glass Maker: Jonathan Gostelowe (American, 1745–1795)

1789

American Decorative Arts

On view, 1st floor, American Decorative Arts before 1900

This dressing glass and an associated, monumental chest of drawers (1930.2503) were made by the Philadelphia cabinetmaker Jonathan Gostelowe for his second wife, Elizabeth Towers, upon their marriage on April 19, 1789. The understated English-style, serpentine-front chest with canted, fluted corners is brilliantly accented by the peacock drawer pulls. The swinging glass is one of the most elaborate examples that can be documented to an eighteenth-century American craftsman.

Medium

Mahogany, ivory, yellow poplar, Atlantic white cedar, and eastern red cedar

Dimensions

Mirror frame: 25 × 11 3/4 in. (63.5 × 29.85 cm)
Overall: 32 3/4 × 19 1/2 × 13 7/8 in. (83.19 × 49.53 × 35.24 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1930.2504a-h

Geography

Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Culture

American

Period

18th century

Classification

Furniture

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Jonathan Gostelowe (1745–1795) and Elizabeth Howell Towers Gostelowe (died 1808), Philadelphia, ca. 1789; by descent to her sister Sarah Towers Evans (died 1815), Philadelphia, by 1815; by descent to her son Robert Towers Evans (1780–1858), Philadelphia, 1815; by descent to his daughter Martha Postrema Evans (died 1895), Philadelphia, 1858; by descent to her adopted niece Eliza Ferguson Evans Fraser (died 1920), Brandywine Manor, Pa., 1895. Acquired by Gertrude Camp (1882–unknown), Whitemarsh, Pa., by July 1926; sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, January 18–19, 1929, lot 173; sold to Francis P. Garvan (1875–1937), New York, January 19, 1929; given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 1930
Bibliography
  • David L. Barquist, Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett, and Gerald W. R. Ward, American Tables and Looking Glasses in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 28, 30, 45, 358–62, no. 207, pl. 7, ill
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 91, ill
  • Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988), 147, no. 66
  • John T. Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition to 1830 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 182, fig. 499
  • Patricia E. Kane, "American Furniture in the Yale University Art Gallery," Antiques 117, no. 5 (June 1980), 1318, fig. 5
  • Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), 152–53, fig. 121
  • Marshall B. Davidson, The American Heritage History of Colonial Antiques (New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1967), 209, fig. 280
  • Meyric R. Rogers, "The Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of Furniture," Yale Alumni Magazine 25, no. 4 (January 1962), 11, ill
  • Thomas H. Ormsbee, The Story of American Furniture (New York: MacMillan Company, 1934), 72–73, illus. 26
  • "Varied Offerings at the Auctions," Good Furniture Magazine (March 1929), 163, fig. 12
  • "The Hayloft advertisement," Antiques 14, no. 4 (October 1928), inside back cover, ill
  • "Carved Mirror Frame," Antique World 10, no. 2 (August 1926), 108, ill
  • "The Hayloft advertisement," Antiques 10, no. 1 (July 1926), 10, ill
  • Clarence W. Brazer, "Jonathan Gostelowe," Antiques 6, no. 9 (June 1926), 388–89, fig. 3–4
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

dressing cases

Inscriptions

"A q y" is written in pencil in eighteenth-century script on the backboard of the looking glass. The monograms "JG" and "ET" are formed with cut-steel pins on the pincushion fitted into the large drawer. Each box and its cover in this drawer is numbered on the underside in an eighteenth-century hand, corresponding to numbers written on the compartment's bottom.

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