American Style: Russell Kettell's Pine Furniture

"Boxes," Top: Coastal New Hampshire, 1710-1750, Private Collection
Middle: New England, 1750-1780, painted pine, F1038, Gift of Russell H. Kettell, Concord Museum Collection
Bottom: New England, 1710-1750, Private Collection

Feb 1 - May 18, 2008

Author of the classic books, Pine Furniture of Early New England and Early American Rooms, Russell Kettell defined an aesthetic that helped shape the appreciation of American art and craft in the 1920s and 1930s. The honest paint surfaces, worn edges, and marks of handtools characterize a look that is both familiar and appealing today. Learn More

Cod Weathervane, New England, 19th century, Painted pine, M323, Gift of Russell H. Kettell, Concord Museum Collection

A visit begins in the new "Why Concord?" history galleries where questions are posed and answers are sought - - all focused on Concord’s remarkable history from Native American settlement through the 20th century.

Visitors further explore answers in the surrounding period rooms and galleries where the Concord Museum's collection of American decorative arts illustrates three centuries of domestic life.
Special exhibitions in three Graham Gund-designed galleries change throughout the course of the year.
Visit "A Main Street Point of View," an ongoing exhibition featuring contemporary and history photographs of Concord's vibrant commercial district, and our new exhibition, "American Style: Russell Kettell's Pine Furniture," coming soon to the Concord Museum.

Why Concord?

Six new galleries and an introductory film serve as the gateway for visitors to explore the Museum's collection and the community of Concord. Among the important assemblage of artifacts which tell the story of Concord's history are:

• Native American stone tools
• Puritan household goods
• Revolutionary War military stores such as powder horns, muskets and cannonballs
• The lantern hung in the church steeple on the night of Paul Revere's ride
• A relic of the original North Bridge
• Daniel Chester French's Minuteman statue
• Thoreau's bed, desk and chair from Walden Pond
• The furnishings of Emerson's Study
• Lyceum and Cattle Show notices
• A banjo clock manufactured on Concord's Milldam
• Manufactures and tools from West Concord's factories

Period Rooms

Rich with furnishings from Concord homes, the period rooms offer a glimpse into the domestic lives of men and women of Concord. Elizabeth Stillinger, in her book, "The Antiquers," said, "The Concord Museum has one of the most remarkable collections of its kind... providing a rare and permanent insight into the tastes and customs of one small town over a period of three centuries."

The Early 18th-Century Chamber - Arranged to suggest a portion of a principal room in the house of a prominent citizen of Concord, such as a minister or magistrate, a room like this 1720 chamber would be a semi-public space, where the owner would receive visitors frequently. The furniture, textiles, framed engravings, and expensive ceramics were all intended to convey to the visitor that the owner was a person of substance and learning, exactly the qualities a magistrate needed to command authority.

The Mid 18th-Century Chamber - The eighteenth-century popularity of tea-drinking as social ritual gave rise to the introduction of such specialized forms as the tea table and the ceramics, silver and other accessories needed to prepare and serve it. The mid 18th-century chamber examines this ritual of Concord’s social history, as well as looks at the new furniture storage forms such as the high chest, dressing table and desk which provided much-needed, compartmentalized storage in which textiles and clothing, grooming needs and business and personal papers were readily accessible.

The 19th-Century Chamber - The early nineteenth-century chamber represents the accumulation of household furnishings that probate inventories and other documentary evidence of the period suggest would be found in a Concord home. The furnishings range from the late Baroque style of the easy chair, long a symbol of eighteenth-century prosperity, to the wallpaper of a “most fashionable pattern,” representing the accelerating pace of change in 19th-century American manufacturing.

The 19th-Century Parlor, Set for Dining - Contemporary prints and paintings, inventories and surviving objects all provide details about domestic settings in the past. The formal characteristics of the Neoclassical taste - - a passion for symmetry, uniformity and order - - are echoed throughout the parlor, in the placing of vessels and utensils in a crescent on the table, in the "D" shape of the card tables, and again in the drapery swag motif which appears in the wallpaper and the fireplace surround.