A Samuel McIntire Sofa

There is an extraordinary auction coming up in a few weeks at Skinner featuring the art and antiques of a Beacon Hill couple. Among the maritime and China Trade paintings and colonial furniture is an amazing c. 1805 mahogany sofa attributed to Salem’s Samuel McIntire, described as carved with a “crest with rectangular panel and shaped flanking panels, all with punchwork ground, the center panel with basket of fruit, the shaped panels with flowers and scrolls, above leaf-carved arms and turned waterleaf-carved supports, all on turned tapering legs” and listed with an opening bid of $15,000 and an estimate between $30,000-$50,000. So this is obviously well beyond my reach, but I still love it, even its upholstery (which I know is not supposed to matter but still).

I had been focused singularly on sofas for much of this year, having made the decision to replace the two settees in my front parlor with one larger couch. I wanted a Sheraton sofa, perhaps not a period piece but some later reproduction, with the (less-embellished) straight lines and legs of the McIntire sofa above. If they’re not attributed to McIntire, they are actually affordable! But I lost out on a few auction bids and then changed direction: my husband wanted something comfortable in that room after sitting on settees for so long, and I had to admit to myself that I really wanted to be able to take a nap in this room, which gets lovely light in the late afternoon. So we ended up with a couch from the 1990s (I think): its straight lines seemed to accommodate any adjacent style and its down cushion is really comfortable and nap-able. I’m pleased with my choice but the sight of this McIntire sofa sent me back into Sheraton musing. I rounded up some more McIntire sofas for fun: not a difficult task as everyone who has one wants the world to know it. There are McIntire sofas in many of the major American museums, in the White House, in the Texas Governor’s Mansion, and of course in the Peabody Essex Museum here in Salem. I’m not sure what the market is for one of these precious pieces now, but a decade ago the very similar Silsbee family sofa sold for over $111,000 in a Christie’s auction, so it will be interesting to see what this Skinner lot fetches.

Sofas attributed to Samuel McIntire of Salem in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Clark Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Winterthur, the White House (the central hall in 1963, photograph from the White House Historical Association) and the Texas Governor’s Mansion. And below: my new/old very Non-McIntirish couch: you can see I went in a very different direction!