Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 29, 2003|Volume 32, Number 1|Two-Week Issue

This mahogany and ash stool created in eastern Massachusetts is among the pieces on view in "Curule: Ancient Design in American Federal Furniture." The exhibit is open through Jan. 4.

Exhibit explores influences
on American furniture design

The ways in which ancient Greek and Roman designs served as inspiration for classical revival furniture in early 19th-century America are explored in the Yale University Art Gallery's newest exhibition.

"Curule: Ancient Design in American Federal Furniture" focuses on seating furniture that used the Roman sella curulis, or folding stool, as a prototype. The small exhibition is on view in the Matrix Gallery through Jan. 4.

The exhibition begins with three first-century B.C. Roman coins from the Yale Art Gallery's numismatic collection. Each of these coins is struck with an image of the sella curulis, one of the principal emblems of political authority in ancient Rome. This folding stool had two hinged S-shaped legs at each end, with a seat frame created by fitting notched side rails onto the fixed front and back rails, with a leather seat stretched between them.

A 16th-century version of the sella curulis is depicted in a drawing from the gallery's collection by Giulio Romano of a scene in which the stool is transformed into a chair for the Roman general Coriolanus. Also in the exhibition is a group of early 19th-century books of architectural and decorative designs by Thomas Hope, George Smith and Charles Heathcote Tatham, published in England, in which the sella curulis is featured. American craftsmen drew upon these, as well as French publications by Pierre de la Mésangère, and Percier and Fontaine for their versions of curule-based furniture.

The exhibition features a side chair and stool that are modeled on the English designs, but the two settees and another chair appear to be distinct American innovations, based more closely on Tatham's etchings of first-century stools excavated at Herculaneum. New York curule furniture is considered remarkably consistent in construction and design, and surviving examples may have been made in one workshop.

David L. Barquist, acting curator of American decorative arts, and Ethan W. Lasser, a Henry S. McNeil graduate research assistant at the gallery, have collaborated on the exhibition and an accompanying publication. The publication includes an essay by Lasser titled "From the Battlefields of Rome to the Mansions of New York: A History of the Curule-Base's Revival" as well as catalogue entries by Barquist. It is available at the museum store for $7 during exhibition and for $10 after its closing.

The exhibition is supported by the Friends of American Arts at Yale and an endowment created with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Classical Furniture in America" symposium

A related symposium, "Classical Furniture in America, 1800-1840" will be held Friday-Sunday, Sept. 19-21.

The symposium will open at 5:30 p.m. on Friday with the 12th annual Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque Memorial Lecture on American Art, which will be delivered by Roger G. Kennedy, the former director of the U.S. National Park Service and director emeritus of the National Museum of American History. His talk, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Classicism in America, from the Hopewell Geomancers through Latrobe and Ramée to Louis Sullivan: The Impulse and the Results." Further information on his talk will appear in an upcoming issue of this newspaper.

Other symposium events require pre-registration and a fee. For further information, call (203) 432-0632 or send e-mail to katherine.chabla@yale.edu.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

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Artist's works portray Christianity through Thai art forms

Exhibit explores influences on American furniture design

Women veterans are found to be at higher risk for homelessness

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Grant to Child Study Center supports evaluation of home-based care

Historian Jaroslav Pelikan is honored for contributions

Former Law School dean honored with the Fleming Award

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