Physical Qualities
Yellow pine with mahogany veneer, maple, oak; painted black with polychrome, and gilt and bronze decoration, 30 3/8 x 38 3/4 x 17 3/16 in. (77.2 x 98.4 x 43.7 cm.)
Credit Line
Friends of the American Wing Fund
Object Number
1977.83
The Finlay brothers created their flourishing enterprise while Baltimore blossomed as an important commercial center on the Eastern seaboard. Their advertisements offered furniture “in all colors, gilt ornamented, and varnished in a style not equaled on the continent.” These were to be had “with or without views adjacent to the city.” Working with the Finlays between 1804 and 1806, Francis Guy was the artist responsible for the “views” that make such pieces unique. Touching on civic pride, his work helped the Finlays attract Baltimore’s richest and most stylish patrons, at the same time blurring the distinction between fine and decorative art. This example, attributed to the Finlay firm on stylistic grounds, features a country house thought to have been built for the Buchanan family somewhere near Green Spring Valley in Baltimore County, Maryland.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, by purchase, 1977; by descent to Reverend S. Janney Hutton, Miles, Virginia; the Misses Sydney Claire (Mrs. Orlando Hutton) and Margaret Buchanan, Baltimore, Maryland; William Buchanan, Baltimore, Maryland, by 1804.
Elder III, William Voss and Jayne E. Stokes. American Furniture 1680-1880: From the Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore: Museum of Art, 1987, p.135-136, ill. 101.
Humphries, Lance. "Provenance, Patronage, and Perception: the Morris Suite of Baltimore Painted Furniture," "American Furniture," 2003, p. 145, figure 12-13.
