Fakes

This monumental Boston desk-and-bookcase offers a fitting conclusion to the story of the Chipstone fakes. Despite Mr. Stone’s confidence, the piece is far from "outstanding." Instead it is fabricated from a wide array of old parts and epitomizes the grand ambitions of the most daring fakers. Most of the evidence present in the other fakes in this exhibition is summed up in this one piece.

When marketed in 1956, the desk-and-bookcase would have looked much more convincing than it does today. The door panels, desk lid, and feet now have an odd greenish cast that has resulted from the fading of the cheap red stain that the faker used—color inconsistencies that provide an initial clue to the piece’s significant problems.

The other clues can be found in the doors of the bookcase which have historically inaccurate replaced panels instead of mirrors. The problems with the decorated uppermost section of the bookcase consists of re-used boards, inappropriate tool marks, and surfaces stained black to obscure the reworked areas. The desk lid shows a lack of wear and new hinge joints. Lastly, the contrived evidence of wear, artificial color, and historically inaccurate construction details of the feet indicate that they are replaced as well. While this desk-and-bookcase appears grand and impressive it is in reality the most complex and ambitious fake in this exhibition.

Desk-and-bookcase
Boston, 1760-1770 with disguised repairs dating c. 1956
Mahogany and white pine
Lent by the Chipstone Foundation 1956.4

In March 1956, we went to Europe, and when we returned we dropped into [a dealer’s shop] and there we saw a truly outstanding Massachusetts bombé secretary of great quality. Coincidentally, Maxim Karolik [the great Boston collector] came in while we were there and rhapsodized about the secretary until any doubts that we might have had about it, and I hasten to say they were minor, vanished.

Stanley Stone

Desk-and-bookcase
Carving attributed to John Welch, Boston, c. 1750
Mahogany and white pine
Lent by the Chipstone Foundation 1991.10

Fortunately, the fraudulent objects shown in this exhibition are a small portion of what the Stones collected. Most of the foundation’s furniture, including this remarkable desk-and-bookcase, wonderfully evidence the broad cabinetmaking traditions in Americas earliest cities. The unidentified
cabinetmaker of this Boston piece is believed to be the first American to produce blockfront and bombé case furniture, and the skillfully rendered carving marks the work of John Welch, the most important and prolific carver in the eighteenth-century.

The distinctively shaped ball feet harken back to a seventeenth-century type, as does the gilt decoration inside the bookcase. In line with the finest examples of mid eighteenth-century American furniture is the brilliantly executed design. As a while the piece exemplifies the type of first-rate colonial American furniture that Stanley and Polly Stone so eagerly and successfully assembled, and that today forms the core of the nationally recognized Chipstone Foundation collection.