CABINET MAKER'S ALBUM OF FURNITURE

BAIRD, Henry Carey. CABINET MAKER'S ALBUM OF FURNITURE. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1868. Small oblong folio (7 x 10 3/4 inches Publisher's cloth. Printed title leaf, leaf listing plates, 48 lithograph plates. First edition. Baird's pattern book was the third such work published in America and one of most pivotal books in shaping American taste. It included a comprehensive ra of items from bureaus, desks, wardrobes, chairs, bookcases, tables, and beds. The style incorporated American colonial design with French and European tast and was heavily influenced by Desire Gulimard's French pattern books. The amalgam of tastes was largely created by Joseph Bonaparte (the elder brother Napoleon) constructing a magnificent house, Point Breeze, twenty-five miles north of Philadelphia. He greatly influenced the monied society that hovered around him, bringing with him sophisticated tastes in furniture not commonly seen before on this side of the Atlantic. A very nice copy with sporadic foxing--some light, some moderate--on many plates. Laid-in is a later letter from the Hampton Roads Furniture Company, offering pieces from the Nelson Mansion, Yorktown.