http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/arts/design/a-salem-cabinetmaker-in-revolutionary-times.html 2014-11-07 00:38:49 A Salem Cabinetmaker in Revolutionary Times The mahogany wares of a prosperous Salem, Mass., cabinetmaker go on view next weekend at the Peabody-Essex Museum. === The 18th-century cabinetmaker Nathaniel Gould left inkblots in his battered gray notebooks as he recorded the luxurious mahogany output of his workshop in Salem, Mass. His listings of clients and fees, found seven years ago in forgotten The show’s The catalog’s main authors, Kemble Widmer and Joyce King, pored over Gould’s accounts to calculate how often he identified the wood types used in his desks for the domestic market (94 percent of the time) and how many of his chests of drawers survive (just five of 56 made). A few years of the ledger documents are missing, and some furniture types have eluded researchers. None of the 224 bedsteads that Gould supplied have been found. A mahogany desk made around 1760 bears the penciled name of one Samuel Gyles, but no one knows whether that was a client or a craftsman. Gould, who died at 47 in 1781, was orphaned by the age of 12 and then apprenticed somewhere around Boston, possibly with his own future father-in-law, Thomas Wood. Importing the latest styles from England, Gould shrewdly catered both to customers loyal to the British government and those fighting for American independence. “He’s selling to both factions and never gets involved,” Mr. Widmer said in an interview. Somewhere along the way, Gould apparently offended an employee. The Peabody Essex Museum has Some pieces going on view changed hands in recent years. In 2004, a mahogany Traces of unidentified Salem-area artisans keep turning up. On Dec. 11, THE MIGHTY CULT OF MAO Mao’s propaganda machine changed strategies often enough that slogans on books and knickknacks became obsolete soon after they were produced. This fall, exhibitions in Manhattan demonstrate how widely these short-lived messages caught on, and how tenaciously some frugal owners held on to objects after they went out of government favor. The collectors of the material now on view are New Yorkers who scoured flea market and antiques stores in China, and typically paid less than $100 for each piece. The art historian Alfreda Murck has donated part of her holdings to the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, which has lent them to the China Institute for an Mango madness, Ms. Murck explained in an interview at her Manhattan apartment, surged briefly in 1968 when Mao handed out some fruit to loyal factory workers. Mangoes became symbols of Mao’s favor. They were reproduced in wax and plastic and displayed under glass domes. Their images appeared on badges, trays, mirrors, thermoses, pencil cases and fabrics, and giant fake mangoes were carried around in parades. “There were poems written saying that ‘looking at the mango made me feel warm, as if I were in the presence of Mao,' ” Ms. Murck said. Mao wanted the fruit to be worshiped rather than eaten. “He preferred meat, especially pork,” she said. Ms. Murck has donated Chinese works to other institutions, including the British Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum and the Princeton University Art Museum. Her closet shelves are still stacked with thermoses, mugs, trays, bowls and fabrics that have yet to find institutional homes. She brought out a worn enamel wash basin painted with a mushroom cloud and the words, “Enthusiastically celebrate our country’s successful explosion of the hydrogen bomb.” Tableware with such imagery and writings remained in use through decades of upheaval in China. “Poverty inspires people to save things,” Ms. Murck said. She and the Museum Rietberg have acquired some pieces through the dealers Justin G. Schiller and Dennis M. V. David, who run the Mr. Schiller and Mr. David have lost count of their copies of Mao’s writings and Mao images on ceramic figurines, jade and turquoise carvings, dinnerware, scrolls, posters, paintings, weavings, vases, lamps, toys, fans, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, badges, furniture and appliances. Inscriptions here and there celebrate China’s ties with the Soviet Union. Images of Mao’s designated successor, Lin Biao, a military leader who died in a plane crash in 1971 after he was accused of plotting a coup against Mao, have been scratched out. Americans are portrayed as capitalists being beaten in public squares. Doctored photos of huge ears of corn and stalks of bok choy date from around 1960, during a period when tens of millions of Chinese died in famines. “Everything was oversized,” Mr. David said, “to show that there was abundance.”