There are andirons by the three major Boston makers, John Molineux, James Davis, and William C. Hunneman. Known for his attention to detail, Feld has included New England pressed glass of the period as well as French porcelain owned by Bostonians. Primarily an art dealer, Feld included fine paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints. Portraits and portrait miniatures introduce the patrons, such as Nathan Appleton and David Sears. Harbor scenes and China trade paintings suggest their source of wealth.
Landscapes give the exhibition a sense of place.
A number of private collectors, including the Felds, have loaned key pieces, and some have been borrowed from the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., and Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Some of the items in the exhibition are for sale. Feld, who in his youth was a curator in charge of the department of American paintings and sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has dedicated this exhibition to the American Wing of that museum in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of its opening in 1924. Hence, unlike the artistic production of New York and Philadelphia, where showiness and extravagance were encouraged, the furniture of Boston in the first half of the nineteenth century tended to be restrained and tasteful, consisting of a limited but aesthetically pleasing vocabulary of form and ornament. Moreover, she points out that most Boston craftsmen were native born, unlike craftsmen in New York and Philadelphia who emigrated from continental Europe.