Market Watch

John and Thomas Seymour’s exotic 18th- century carvings, soaring to new records at auction, add new authority to the notion of ‘Maine cachet.’

Fecych Sprague is recognized as the historian and independent museum curator responsible for much of the existing Maine-period Seymour research (largely drawn from the archives of the Maine Historical Society).

Seymour furniture is exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Winterthur and has been the subject of a significant exhibition at the Essex Institute. Pieces known to have truly been made by the Seymours are hard to come by at auction or in a gallery. “Attributed to” or “School of John and Thomas Seymour” is more likely because so few pieces bear the chalky “JS” signature or their label. Solid attribution often relies on impeccable documentation linking its origins to some of New England’s finest families, among them Codmans and Amorys.

The record-breaking Seymour piece to date is a labeled card table that a schoolteacher purchased for $25 at a garage sale; after appearing with it on Antiques Roadshow, she sold it at Sotheby’s in 1998 to Israel Sack, Inc., for $541,000. More recently, pieces “attributed to” or “school of” are selling at auction in the $10,000-to-$300,000 range. In 2007, Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth sold several such pieces, including a pair of rare scroll-back side chairs for $127,000.

Taking his lead from his English roots, John Seymour refined those anglophilic techniques into a neoclassical aesthetic designed to harmonize with the rest of the home in the Robert Adam tradition. Sparing no expense, he used exotic inlays, veneers, and delicate carving to create a signature, restrained design. By 1800, the talents of son Thomas emerged in new forms, such as scroll-arm supports and fancy lyre-based tables. In interpreting English derivations, the two created a restrained style that set the standard for American furniture for a generation. n

Sarah Cumming Cecil, a principal in the interior design firm Rose Cumming (www.rosecummingdesign.com), writes frequently on art, antiques, and interior design. Her work has appeared in ARTnews, Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Connoisseur, and The New York Times.

�illiam �rthur

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