Republican austerity, the simple life suited to a new and still quite .primitive nation, was an appealing notion when the United States came into being. There was something rugged about the continent itself, after all; and we were quick to contrast ourselves with the corruption of an effete monarchical government. In 1801 Thomas Jefferson began his Presidency, and his own egalitarian principles pushed the country still further away from the pomp and etiquette that prevailed overseas.

But it never occurred to Jefferson—or, indeed, to most of the other Founding Fathers—to equate simplicity of manner with ugly houses or plain furniture. The archives of the period bulge with letters in which these statesmen, Washington foremost as usual, require their correspondents to ship them a wide variety of luxury goods. Just recently a bottle of Jefferson’s Bordeaux wine reached a vast sum at auction ($156,450); some of his French furniture is back at Monticello; and, of course, that house and the Jefferson-designed University of Virginia are among this country’s architectural masterpieces.

When it came to furniture, American cabinetmakers, most notably in Newport and Philadelphia, had for some time been making furniture that could rival the best imports, but in the years after the Revolution the domestic industry flowered. Spurred by a burgeoning maritime economy and invigorated by a fresh wave of immigrant craftsmen skilled in the latest European styles and techniques, new regional centers emerged and new, specialized kinds of furniture came into being.

The secretary on the opposite page is a case in point. It is in the style of Thomas Sheraton, the English cabinet-maker whose graceful neoclassicism came to dominate furniture making as the eighteenth century drew to a close. This piece, however, was made in New York. Harmonious and delicate, its sien- der elegance makes it virtually certain that it was meant for a lady, and its first owner must indeed have been pleased. Although the French Empire style, with its stiffer, heavier, more majestic forms, was gaining influence in this period—the first decade of the nineteenth century —the secretary is purely English in concept even if, by London standards, a little behind the times. What we see here, in fact, is a testimonial to the relative isolation of the United States; it took time for European fashions to cross the Atlantic. And once they arrived, they invariably underwent a more or less sub- tie transformation into an American—or, more precisely, a regional—vernacular. The craftsmen of Salem, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore all produced distinct variations on the imported styles.

It is also clear from this secretary that American craftsmen equaled their European counterparts. Whether this is the work of Duncan Phyfe or another New York cabinetmaker such as Michael Allison or John T. Dolan, the fact remains that surface,