David Poignand and Jersey Furniture

The following request for information has been received from the St. Louis Art Museum:

In 1936 the St. Louis Art Museum was given a group of American furniture, which, according to family tradition, was made in Boston, Massachusetts, by David Poignand, an immigrant from the Isle of Jersey. In Boston he was active as a hardware merchant in partnership with a John Bazin from Guernsey. Any thoughts would be welcome about a regional origin in England for the design and construction of the case furniture which is essentially Chippendale or Hepplewhite-style carcasses with classical inlays copied from neoclassical sources.

The design and construction details, such as wedged lower dovetails in drawers, horizontal stacked blocking and extensive chamfering of the rear surfaces of the ogee bracket feet are entirley anomalous in Boston area furniture. Poignand was related to clockmakers active on Jersey, but if he trained as a cabinetmaker it could have been in counties on the southern and southwestern coast of England that communicated with the Channel Islands.

David Conradsen Assistant Curator St. Louis Art Museum