Harbor & Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710-1850
"Using furniture and other artifacts, diaries, and account books, the study introduces us to the men who made their living in seafaring commerce and to the craftsmen of the region. . . . Harbor and Home . . . focuses the attention . . . on the heritage of southeastern Massachusetts."—Maine Antique Digest“Harbor and Home contains rich documentation of the best of 18th and 19th century clocks, chests, chairs, desks, and dressing tables. Readers are treated to rarely seen pieces from outstanding private and public collections.”—Collectors Journal and Country Pleasures Magazine“For too long the work of the cabinetmakers of southeastern Massachusetts sat in the shadows, labeled “good” or “better” against Boston and Newport “bests.” With this book, the reassessment of furniture long attributed to Boston and Newport can begin, grounded in solid scholarship, as we rediscover the work of craftsmen who “crafted careers as solid and useful as the furniture they fashioned.”—Winterthur Portfolio“Harbor & Home is an important and accomplished work in merging the decorative arts of Massachusetts’ coast to the local histories that created them. . . . While Jobe’s 1984 publication New England Furniture: The Colonial Era gives one of the finest overviews and looks at the entire region, Harbor & Home carries this scholarship to a new level. . . . Harbor &Home; will easily appeal to the decorative art collector of Americana, but is also a certain must for the professional or scholar in both New England and Americana decorative arts. Brock Jobe’s passion for the subject and region, along with his scholarship distilled from years of work, are on full display in Harbor & Home.”—Historical Journal of Massachusetts