Locally constructed clock featured in museum exhibit
A clock made in Fayette County during the early 19th century is claiming a prominent place in the newly reopened Alisa Mellon Bruce Galleries for decorative arts at Carnegie Museum of Art in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The galleries, which had been closed about 10 years, reopened Nov. 21 with a new look and some 500 examples of American and European decorative arts and design from the mid-18th century to the present day. The clock stands by itself in the front room against the wall as visitors enter the second-floor galleries.
In a recent media preview, Lynn Zelevansky, director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, said the gallery hopes “to inspire people and given them a good depth of understanding about decorative arts.”
Jason T. Busch, curator of decorative arts, said, “We’re fortunate in western Pennsylvania to have a rich tradition of craftsmanship and design.”
That includes the Fayette County clock, which is believed to have been built in 1800 in Bridgeport, which later became part of Brownsville. Information provided by the museum said the cabinet is attributed to William Cock, who lived from 1776 to 1856, while the clockworks is attributed to Israel Gregg, who was born between 1775 and 1780 and died in 1847. The clock is walnut with an inlay of maple and other light woods, brass, lead and painted iron. It measures about 100 inches by 22 inches by 11 inches.
The museum information reported, “The tall case clock is a model for the level of sophistication in early neoclassical furniture produced on the American frontier. It achieves an admirable balance between vine-and-leaf decoration – characteristic of the region – and fan and paterae designs favored on the East Coast at the time. The precisely rendered pictorial motifs are composed of wedge-shaped inlay, some cleverly burned in sand, evoking shadow on otherwise two-dimensional decorations. Small sprigs on the front are juxtaposed with fully developed meandering vines that continue along the sides of the clock, a feature rarely seen on other western Pennsylvania furniture. It is also one of the only three known objects made in the region around 1800 with an engraved eagle shield, based on the Great Seal of the then-young United States of America.”
The information also noted the attribution of the clock to Cock and Gregg is based on its similarity to other documented examples by these men.
“The clock retains an impeccable provenance dating back to its original ownership by William Goe Jr. (1729-1824) or his son Henry Bateman Goe (1770-1817),” according to the information. “It was installed in Friendship, the Goe family homestead in Fayette County, where it remained until dispersal of the estate in 1949,” the museum reported.
Busch noted that Friendship is not the same home as Friendship Hill, the Springhill Township home of Albert Gallatin, U.S. secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, that is now a national park. Busch also is asking anyone with information on the clock to call him at 412-622-1905.
Meanwhile, Fayette County visitors might also be interested in another local piece in the gallery – a slant-front desk made in Perryopolis circa 1800.
Information posted at the desk reads, “The geometric lines, elegantly graduated domes and flared ‘French’ feet on this desk were inspired by designs originally published in London, such as George Hepllewhite’s ‘Cabinetmaker and Upholster’s Guide,’ 1790. Such designs spread westward to the Pittsburgh region from Philadelphia and Baltimore, Md. The refined inlay decoration, including vine and leaf motifs+. speak to the level of sophistication achieved in furniture in the American frontier.”
Busch said of both pieces, “With these objects, you get a sense of the level of craftsmanship that existed.”
The four Bruce Galleries include nearly 8,500 square feet of exhibition space that make up four open galleries, which flow from one to the other.
The first gallery is dedicated to rotating exhibitions while the other galleries have rooms devoted to a variety of furnishings in the styles of rococo and neoclassicism, historicism, arts and craft, and art nouveau, and modern and contemporary design and craft.
Among the highlights is a recreation of a room at PicNic, a 1830s Greek revival mansion owned by the Groghan family in Pittsburgh.
The room includes painted and gilded parlor furniture as well as a portrait of Mary Croghan Schenley, who eloped at 15 to marry British Capt. Edward Schenley, who was three times her age and twice a widower.
Other highlights include a silver 1867 Tennyson Vase, which tells King Arthur’s final battle from English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King;” stained-glass window panels (1908-12) by Louis Comfort Tiffany from the Richard Beatty Mellon Pittsburgh mansion; and an assortment of intriguing chairs, including a Modernistic dining chair made with technology by Pittsburgh Plate Glass that was displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
For more information, visit online at www.cmoa.org.