The Goddard and Townsend families of Newport lend their name to an extensive body of
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
furniture associated with
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...
in the second half of the 18th century.
Family of artisans
The Townsend and Goddard families were two
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
families that were part of a large cabinetmaking community centered in The Point neighborhood of Newport, a predominantly Quaker neighborhood. The founders of this cabinetmaking dynasty immigrated to Newport from other New England towns. Christopher Townsend (1701–1787) and Job Townsend (1699–1765) of Oyster Bay, New York, came to Newport in 1707 with their parents Solomon Townsend and Catherine (Almy) Townsend. Both brothers would become cabinetmakers in Newport. Carpenter and cabinetmaker Daniel Goddard (1697–1764) was born in Jamestown, Rhode Island to Henry Goddard and Mary (Howland) Goddard. He moved from Jamestown first to Dartmouth, Massachusetts, before settling in Newport by 1727.
The second generation of Newport cabinetmakers from these families are perhaps the best known.
John Townsend (1732–1809) was the son of Christopher Townsend and Patience (Easton) Townsend. He would marry Philadelphia Feke (1742–1802), daughter of famed portrait painter
Robert Feke
Robert Feke () was an American portrait painter born in Oyster Bay, New York. According to art historian Richard Saunders, "Feke's impact on the development of Colonial painting was substantial, and his pictures set a new standard by which the ...
. John Goddard (1723/4-1785) was the son of Daniel Goddard and apprentice of Job Townsend. He married Job's daughter Hannah Townsend (1728–1804).
Twenty-one members of successive generations of these two intermarried families worked as cabinetmakers over a period of 120 years, selling their products not only in New England but also in the coastal trade and in the West Indies.
Furniture
The furniture associated with the Goddard and Townsend families is identified by a number of unique features. The so-called
Block-and-shell motif, a block-front topped by a carved shell in alternating concave and convex pattern, is one of the key features. However, this alone is not proof of Goddard or Townsend origin- recently rediscovered cabinetmakers such as Benjamin Baker (1734–1822) of Newport or Grindal Rawson (1719–1803) of Providence are also known to have used the carved shell pattern when constructing
case furniture
A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (solid ...
.
[Dennis A Carr, "The Account Book of Benjamin Baker," American Furniture (2004)] Newport furniture of this school is also associated with a distinct
ball and claw foot, in which there is an open space carved between the talon and ball. Such a form is thought to be unique to Newport, though not unique to the Goddard or Townsend families.
Notable works
A single
mahogany
Mahogany is a straight- grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Universit ...
secretary bookcase made by Christopher Townsend (John's father) in 1740 sold at auction in New York for $8.25 million. John Goddard made a famous six-shell desk-bookcase for Providence merchant
Nicholas Brown, Sr. It was sold by the Brown family in 1989, for $12.1 million — a record for a piece of American furniture at auction.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follow ...
,
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
,
Boston Museum of Fine Art
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 work ...
,
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and period ...
,
Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art m ...
and
Preservation Society of Newport County
The Preservation Society of Newport County is a private, non-profit organization based in Newport, Rhode Island. It is Rhode Island's largest and most-visited cultural organization. The organization protects the architectural heritage of Newpor ...
own works of Goddard-Townsend.
References and external links
Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060907013736/http://www.redwoodlibrary.org/notables/goddard.htm Redwood Library Records of the Goddards and Townsendsbr>
Townsend Family info
See also
*
List of furniture designers
This is a list of notable people whose primary occupation is furniture design.
A
* Alvar Aalto (1898–1976)
* Eero Aarnio (born 1932)
* Robert Adam (1728–1792)
* Thomas Affleck (1745–1795)
* Franco Albini (1905–1977)
* Davis Allen ( ...
.
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Rhode Island culture
Chairs
American cabinetmakers
American furniture designers