Furniture: Chairs made for P. T. Barnum by Julius Dessoir

Chair from P. T. Barnum’s first Bridgeport home, Iranistan.  The chair, made of striped wood called tiger maple, is one of a set of six and is part of a suite of furniture custom-made for Barnum's personal library.  Julius Dessoir, a New York City cabinetmaker, made the suite for the Barnums between about 1846 and 1848 when their new home was being built.  The set includes chairs, a library table, a settee (sofa), and a desk with cabinet.   The style is referred to as Chinoiserie, a French word that refers to the aesthetic of Chinese decorative arts. During the 19th century in Europe and America, Chinoiserie was a popular style that drew upon elements of Chinese decorative arts, applying them to European forms of furniture.  This chair, along with the rest of the suite, features fanciful hand-carved details, including moths, swans, and a tent-like form with tassels, designs that echo the "exotic" style of Iranistan's architecture. Except for the geometric detailing on the front of the seat frame, the fantastical carvings are not traditional  Rather, the carvings reveal Barnum's own personal taste, as well as the skill of the furniture maker. The patterned upholstery material is a reproduction of the antique fabric that was on the chair; the red velvet and golden color gimp trimming the edges are also modern replacements. Julius Dessoir was a Prussian emigre who came to America in the 1840s, and was naturalized on October 19, 1852. The first listing of his work as a cabinetmaker appears in the 1842-1843 New York City directory. His furniture workshop was located on Broadway, as was Barnum's American Museum. Dessoir became well known for his decorative carving, and his work was exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1853 in New York City. Other examples of Dessoir's work can be found in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dessoir's work for Barnum was done within the first decade of his arrival in America. Barnum had returned from a three-year tour of Europe in 1846 and was anxious to build an "oriental villa" as the family home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Iranistan, as he named it, was designed in the Moorish revival style by Leopold Eidlitz, but was very closely modeled after the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England. The mansion, which sat on 17 acres and was built at a cost of $100,000, lasted only ten years (1848-1857), as it burned to the ground on December 17, 1857. Most likely the Dessoir suite was located elsewhere at the time of the fire (Barnum and his family were not living in the home then) as the fire broke out in the middle of the night and with the home unoccupied, it does not seem likely that furniture was pulled from the burning house, especially an item as large as the Dessoir breakfront bookcase. However, contemporary descriptions do note that precious items were saved. The set was donated to the museum in 1888 by Barnum and his second wife, Nancy Fish Barnum.