DESK-AND-BOOKCASE

Today, nearly two dozen examples of John Shearer’s work are known.  Many of them are signed at least once, if not multiple times, and bear his unique cabinetmaking style.  Shearer was an avowed loyalist, and one of his surviving cabinet works is inscribed (perhaps secretly) on the bottom of a drawer, “From a Tory/ Vive le Roy/ Save the King/ by me John Shearer.”  With vertically placed brasses to conform to its block-fronted shape, MESDA’s desk and bookcase is considered the grandest of these surviving works.  It was signed by the artisan no fewer than twenty times and bears inscriptions such as “God Save the King 1801” and “Made by me, John Shearer Septr. 1801 From Edinburgh 1775/ Made in Martinsburgh.”  On at least three other pieces, Shearer proclaimed his Edinburgh origins, but his cabinetmaking style seems quintessentially American and suggests a significant degree of Backcountry influence. Executed in walnut, cherry, mulberry, yellow pine, and oak, its idiosyncratic combination of baroque, rococo, and neoclassical elements celebrates the abilities of Backcountry artisans, often working in rural areas, to rely on native-grown materials and their own imaginations to create evocative furniture objects.