Furniture of the Federal period.

Since the early twentieth century American furniture of the Federal period has enjoyed widespread popularity among collectors. The defining dates of the style generally span the last decades of the eighteenth century through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The rectilinear lines and overall symmetry associated with the Federal style are attributable to a newfound interest in classical antiquity initiated in Europe, which not long thereafter found its way across the Atlantic.

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An exhibition on view at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, between September 19 and January 9, 2005, features more than sixty pieces of furniture (including clocks and looking glasses) and a smattering of ceramics, glass, and metalwork, all loaned from a private collection. The furniture was made variously in New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and the South. The exhibition is entitled Our Young Nation: American Federal Furniture and Decorative Arts from the Watson Collection.

Far from being a remote outpost, the United States had relatively quick access to new styles from London and other cities in Europe through imported goods, immigrant craftsmen who had trained abroad, and design books that were exported soon after publication. As Philip D. Zimmerman, the author of the catalogue of the Watson Collection, points out, William Bingham of Philadelphia traveled in Europe with his wife between 1784 and 1786, and while in England and France purchased paintings, sculpture, mantels, carpets, textiles, silver, and furniture, all ...