Eventon Fall Front Desk - SOLD - Christopher H Jones Antiques

Walnut Fall Front Desk
Dumfries or Central Virginia, Circa 1770
Shop of Mardun Vaughn Eventon ( d.circa 1778)
“Master Workman in the various Branches of the Cabinet Business”

Commentary: The career of Mardun V.Eventon has intrigued scholars and collectors of southern furniture since the discovery of his signature boldly inscribed on the back boards of a desk and bookcase in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg. The desk has served as the rosetta stone and has, along with the research on Eventon undertaken by Luke Beckerdite (,MESDA Journal (Nov. 1984), provided a structure for the study of this artisan’s work and a basis for attributions to his shop. In discussing the signed Eventon desk at Colonial Williamsburg and related pieces, authors Ron Hurst and Jonathan Prown note that scholarship relating to Eventon is particularly challenging due to the “eccentric nature of Eventon, his personal and professional history [and] the eclectic nature of his furniture.” (Southern Furniture Page 464) Similarly, Luke Beckerdite concludes that “variations in the style and construction of the…[Eventon] group show that a steady stream of tradesmen passed through Eventon’s shop…[and] some case pieces have interrelated features and histories that allow [attribution to] journeymen cabinetmakers who had worked in Eventon’s shop, but the exact locus of their production is uncertain.” Even after considerable research, the outlines of Eventon’s life and career remain vague and consist primarily of traces left in the legal records and his surviving furniture. This self styled “Master Workman in the various Branches of the Cabinet Business” produced an important body of work during his relatively brief career that has yet to be fully understood.

Eventon appears in Virginia records as early as 1762 as a cabinetmaker in Dumfries where court documents mention both Mardun and Maurice – a kinsman of undetermined relationship. In the same year, merchant John Glassford of Dumfries detailed several transactions with Eventon involving a side table, dining table and several other pieces of furniture. Eventon’s business must have been flourishing to the extent that he was unable to recruit skilled assistants in the local market as evidenced by a 1763 ad he placed in the Pennsylvania Gazette seeking “TWO or three Journeyman Cabinet Makes, that can work will in any common Branch in the Cabinet or Chair way; … are desired to apply to MARDUN VAGHN EVENTON, at Dumfries, in Virginia, on the main Post Road from Annapolis to Williamsburgh. N. B. Virginia Money will be paid to such Journeymen as will come quickly.” Eventon attributed furniture has been identified with histories of ownership across central, eastern Virginia, while Eventon himself appears in records in King William, Prince William, Henrico, and Chesterfield Counties. These sources provide substantial evidence that the last 10 to 12 years of Eventon’s career were spent in the central piedmont of Virginia. This desk was found in Buckingham County, Virginia, which adjoins Eventon’s known area of activity, and has a history of ownership there in the Brown Family from the early 19th century. Eventon died in 1778, possibly from illness or injuries relating to his service in the Revolutionary War as a member of the 5th Virginia Regiment.

The signed Eventon desk and bookcase in the collection of Colonial Williamsburg represents the high point of Eventon’s craft and is superior in style and workmanship to any of the other desks or chests now attributed to his shop. While the Williamsburg desk achieves a level of refinement unsurpassed by other known pieces, it provides evidence of construction techniques and stylistic preferences that have allowed furniture historians at MESDA and other institutions to identify a group that can be attributed to Eventon’s shop. This desk can be definitively tied to Eventon’s shop by the distinctive design of the interior, which, as with the signed example, features sophisticated corbelled drawer ranks and receding shaped drawer fronts that set them apart from other Tidewater desks. Also unique to these two desks is the design of the columned document compartments that are only half depth – the only known examples of such document compartments. The proportions, construction and materials employed are consistent with other desks attributed to the Eventon shop with the normal variations commensurate with the various locales in which Eventon worked and the number of journeymen that he employed. The combination of design characteristics, materials and techniques found in this desk represent the signature of a “Master Workman” and are compelling and overwhelming evidence of Eventon’s direction in its creation.

Examples of Eventon’s work can be found in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg, Kenmore, and MESDA.

Condition: The overall structural integrity of the desk is excellent. The old surface has been lightly cleaned, consolidated and waxed. The base molding and feet are replacements and one of the interior drawers has been rebuilt. There are old repairs to the hinges, fall board edges and to the edges of the lower drawers. The brasses are old and may be original. The secondary woods are yellow pine and poplar.

Probable Line of Descent: The desk was purchased in Buckingham County, Virginia where it has a recent history in the Leseur Family, long time residents. The underside of the upper proper right desk drawer bears the undated inscription “left to me “WW (?) Brown by my uncle Smith W. Brown.” Smith W. Brown (1814 – 18??) who settled in Buckingham County near Curdsville around the time of his marriage in 1839 to Martha (remarried 1851 to Marie Mallory) was the son of Bernard Brown (1781 – 18??) who (married Miriam/Sarah Maupin 1802) of Albemarle County. Bernard Brown was the son of Bernard M. Brown (1750-1800?) and Elizabeth Dabney Brown also of Albemarle County who was likely the first owner of the desk.

Price: Sold