Elizabeth A. Flemming
Staples for Genteel Living: The Importation of London Household Furnishings into Charleston During the 1780s

Figure 1

Thomas Leech, A View of Charleston, London, 1774. (Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.) This view shows the east side of the city, where most of the ships arriving from London would have docked.

Figure 2 Trade card for James Brown, London, mid- to late eighteenth century. (Courtesy, British Museum, Heal Tradecard Collection.)

Figure 3 Photograph showing the Nathaniel Heyward House, Charleston, South Carolina, built ca. 1780–1790. (Courtesy, Historic Charleston Foundation.) The house has been demolished.

Figure 4

Detail from Ichnography of Charleston, published in London in 1790 from a survey taken by Edmund Petrie in 1788. (Courtesy, Library of Congress.) The two Charleston mercantile firms receiving and selling goods shipped by Douglas were (a) Cochran and William McClure and (b) James Gregorie.

Figure 5

Detail from J. Fairburn, London and Westminster, 1800. (Courtesy, Map Collection, Yale University Library.) The map shows Broker’s Row just east of Moorfields.

Figure 6

Trade card for Pitt & Chessey, London, ca. 1780. (Courtesy, British Museum, Heal Tradecard Collection.)

Figure 7

Designs for Field Beds” illustrated on pl. 49 in the 3d edition of Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1762). (Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.)

Figure 8

Design for a bookcase illustrated on pl. 1 in The Cabinet-Makers’ London Book of Prices (1793). (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum Library.)

Figure 9 Design for a dressing commode illustrated on pl. 10, fig. 4, in The Cabinet-Makers’ London Book of Prices (1793). (Courtesy, Winterthur Museum Library.)

Figure 10 Thomas Watson, teapot and stand from a service shipped by James Douglas to James Gregorie on March 17, 1785. (Private collection; photo, Gavin Ashworth.)