Comments on: Thomas Brooks Dresser With Putto

By: Anna Kuhre

Anna Kuhre — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:54:03 +0000

Someone gifted me almost an identical bedroom set with an incredible 90″ headboard. It is all rosewood. I am so excited to find out the manufacturers name. Anna

By: cc

cc — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:31:45 +0000

I recently found this article listed by Linda Delman Realty…
The Seaweed mansion was originally buit in 1860-1861 and owned by Mr Henry Howard, it was altered in 1867 by renowned architect George Champlin Moor, in 1904 it was purchased by the Thomas Dolan family of Philadelphia, they hired architect Horance Trumbauer to bring it to it’s present colonial revival style !
This article on the history of this historic Newport Ri mansion shows that this Thomas Brooks chest very well could have been purchased directly from Brooks for this home !
My feeling is when the the house was altered (remodeled) in 1867 the chest was purchased, this would be in keeping with the time frame of the 1860′s when the chest was made !
The Seaweed estate had remaind in the Dolan family until last year when it was sold.

By: cc

cc — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:57:28 +0000

John: you are correct, I know for a fact that this chest was removed from the Seaweed mansion in the summer of 2007 wer
It was sold by a Bristol RI auction house, it was not pictured or advertised at the sale.

By: misslilybart

misslilybart — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:52:21 +0000

John, IIRC, when we needed a thesis from the Bard program for our research, they were not especially helpful. According to the WorldCat database, there is also a copy of the Brooks thesis in the library of the American Wing @ Metropolitan Museum of Art.

http://libmma.org/portal/

Search on “thomas brooks” (no quotes) to access the catalog info.

By: John Werry

John Werry — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:16:57 +0000

I asked the Bard Graduate Center if I could get a repro of the thesis but I only got crickets….

thanks MLB and thanks Mario for digging those up.

By: misslilybart

misslilybart — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:01:55 +0000

The query re Thos. Brooks appeared in the August 1998 issue of The Magazine Antiques, and read thusly:

“THE CABINETMAKER Thomas Brooks (1811-1887), who worked in Brooklyn, New York, from 1841 to 1885, is the subject of a master’s thesis for the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the History of the Decorative Arts in New York City. Of particular interest are information on labeled or documented pieces by Thomas Brooks and Company and related archival material. Any biographical information would also be greatly appreciated “

By: John Werry

John Werry — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:58:53 +0000

The dresser didn’t start it’s life there, but could have ended up at Seaweed later on – obviously post-1905.

By: Mario

Mario — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:05:06 +0000

Seaweed was built in 1905, so the home post-dates the furniture by about forty-years.

By: cc

cc — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:01:58 +0000

This wonderfull chest originally came from the Newport RI mansion known as Seaweed were it sat in the third floor bedroom.
The mansion has a great history and was sold last year by Sothebys realty for 8.5 million dollars.

By: English Classics

English Classics — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:00:21 +0000

Well now that I know I haven’t been somehow axed by John’s cyberspatial guardians, I wrote a blog post that I think settles the debate between “cherub” and “putto”:

http://www.english-classics.net/blog/furniture-commentary/putto-or-cherub

John, feel free to delete my above post.