Carving for classical Newport Furniture
Learn the hallmark elements of this prized colonial style
Al Breed | Maine Coast Workshop
www.MaineCoastWorkshop.com
July 11-15, 2022
Some of the most highly prized furniture by today’s collectors and museums was built in Newport, Rhode Island in the second half of the 18th century. Wealthy families commissioned elegantly proportioned and embellished pieces from the Townsend and Goddard families as well as other skilled Rhode Island craftsmen. There’s a great reward in challenging yourself as a craftsperson and recreating one or more of these iconic works. In this class NH based master carver Al Breed will pass on the basic processes and tricks he has learned in making nearly 30 Newport pieces over the years. We will cover the hallmark Newport elements: concave and convex shells, ball and claw and bracket feet and the Egyptian-like sparse knee carving seen nowhere else in colonial America.
Allan has done work for and taught seminars with Sotheby’s and Christie’s in New York. he has presented many demonstrations and lectures at the Winterthur Furniture Forum as well as lectures on American furniture connoisseurship at Bayou Bend, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and many others.
Al has handled and evaluated hundreds of pieces of early furniture in the course of my work, and this experience sets him apart from many other modern practitioners of the craft.
