Texas style.(Museum accessions)

Among the many legacies that Ima Hogg left to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, along with her house Bayou Bend, was a small pioneering collection of Texas furniture. Following in her path, William James Hill has recently bestowed eleven fine examples of Texas-made furniture on the Bayou Bend Collection.

In the nineteenth century Texas was isolated from much of the United States; yet trade channels gave Texans international ties often not available in the rest of the country. Thus, it is not surprising that highly diverse furniture styles developed there. Many chair-and cabinetmakers immigrated from the East, most often from the southern part of the United States. The largest contingent of immigrant furniture craftsmen, however, came from German-speaking areas of Europe, approximately 33 percent according to one study. Most of these workers were highly trained. Many had served as apprentices and journeymen in Europe, and a few had even attained the status of master craftsman.

The New Braunfels community in central Texas was a large German settlement founded in 1845. Among a number of well-trained craftsmen there, the best-known is Johann Michael Jahn, whose work is much coveted today. This Pomeranian born cabinetmaker had apprenticed in Prague and worked as a journeyman in Switzerland. He arrived in Texas in 1844 and soon after settled in New Braunfels. The style that he and other immigrant cabinetmakers brought with them was that of the simple, minimally ornamented Biedermeier. Popular in many German regions of Europe, Biedermeier furniture varied strikingly from place to place, and thus its influence in Texas also led to an interesting variety of works. In general the German-Texan craftsmen steered away from any fittings, handles, knobs, or fancy plates. In the case of Jahn, for example, we find that he avoided any ornament that might detract from the large patterned surface of the doors on his wardrobes. On the recently acquired example attributed to him (shown here), there is only a simple carved crest on the top, which matches one on another wardrobe that has descended in Jahn's family. Otherwise not only is the shape of the piece simple, but the ornament is really the wood itself--finely polished black walnut with a beautiful pattern of graining that is carefully matched on the two doors.

...