Mississippi Rococo
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By Ralph Harvard
A passion for gadrooning and
elaborately carved dolphins, lions,
paws, and claws has led Betty Jo
and Jerold Krouse to form a
spirited collection of eighteenthcentury masterworks and masterpieces in Natchez, Mississippi
Photography by Langdon Clay
Facing page: Fig. 1. Reflecting the diversity and quality of the collection at Cottage Gardens in Natchez, a mid-eighteenth-century Irish
gilded looking glass hangs above a small mahogany tea caddie on top
of a seventeenth-century English walnut box that is placed on a rich
mahogany English console with Vitruvian scroll frieze and lion’s-paw
feet. Reflected in the looking glass is a well-documented tall-case
clock that has the original label reading, “Made and sold by George
Pickering [d. 1784], Cabinet and Chair Maker in Water Street between Race and Vine Streets, Philadelphia.” The clockworks are
signed by Jacob Godshalk (c. 1735–1781) of Philadelphia.
Fig. 2. Typical of the South, a broad hall bisects the house. The Irish
mahogany serving table of c. 1760 is illustrated in the Knight of Glin
and James Peill’s Irish Furniture (2007). The Philadelphia mahogany
side chairs of c. 1775 have knee carving attributed to John Pollard
(1740–1787) and a crest attributed to “Spike,” an unknown carver
whose style is distinctive. The English gilded looking glass and rococo brackets all date to the mid-eighteenth century.
I
t is rare when objects of a similar age but widely
different origins arrive in an unfamiliar location and
settle in happily together. It is perhaps even more
unexpected to find an intercontinental mix of furnishings
from mid-eighteenth-century Ireland, England, and the
United States in Natchez, Mississippi. Although it has
been ruled under five international flags, Natchez is most
closely associated with the pre-Civil War South. A grand
street, and in contrast to the city’s grand mansions, is more
intimately scaled. Long believed to have been built in 1794
for Spanish royal governor Don José Vidal (1765–1828)
on a land grant from the Spanish crown, its exposed
chimneys, rare in this region, suggest this early date as
does its location in the old northern suburbs, which is at
odds with development of the town. The cottage was
significantly updated (or perhaps even rebuilt) in the 1830s
Fig. 3. Cottage Gardens in Natchez, Mississippi. Photograph
courtesy of the Historic Natchez Foundation.
Fig. 4. Entrance hall at Cottage Gardens in a photograph of c.
1939. Louisiana State University Libraries, Baton Rouge,
Special Collections, Thomas H. and Joan W. Gandy Collection
Fig. 5. Overlooking the stair hall is an authoritative mahogany and mahogany veneer chest-on-chest with a pierced pediment made for Joseph Fox (1709–1779) of Foxboro, Pennsylvania, c. 1775. Its carving is by an unknown carver, probably
Philadelphian Richard Butts (active 1768–1778).
Fig. 6. In the rear hall near the garden stands the desk-andbookcase made c. 1770 in the Philadelphia shop of Benjamin
Randolph (1737–1792) and passed down through the family
to Pennsylvania State Senator Richard Tilghman. This architectonic bespoke piece is inscribed and dated “Nancy Emlen
1771” and arguably has the most elaborately carved interior
(in this case by Pollard) of any American desk-and-bookcase.
Details of the carved feet are from Thomas Chippendale’s
Gentleman and Cabinet-maker’s Director (1762). The Milton
bust and glass are replacements.
Cottage Gardens sits back rather reticently from the street, and
in contrast to the cities grand mansions, is more intimately scaled
old cotton port on the bluffs overlooking the mighty
Mississippi River, the city has beautifully preserved its
large assortment of ambitious planters’ houses, most of
which date from the second quarter of the nineteenth
century. It is a city of tall columns and tall tales, deep
tufting and shallow tableaux, and all the other great
things that reflect the romanticized antebellum South.
Cottage Gardens sits back rather reticently from the
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Antiques
or 1840s, possibly by architect T. J. Hoyt, whose distinctive semielliptical stairway can also be seen at The Burn.
Typical of the planters’ cottages indigenous to the Lower
Mississippi Valley, the house is a story and a half, with its
long roof incorporating a recessed gallery-porch on both
the front and rear. The facade has the unusual distinction
of a pedimented gable, with a bull’s eye window, which
adds formality to the rustic cottage form. Although the
cylindrical columns replace early square ones, the “sheaf
of wheat” design balustrade is original to the house.
Cottage Gardens seems always to have been well
maintained and was among the first houses to be open
for the Natchez Pilgrimage Tours in 1932. In the 1960s
a major remodeling took place under the auspices of
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Fig. 7. The parlor mixes English, Irish, Philadelphia, and New York furniture in a panoply
of “S” scrolls; lush fabrics; and glistening silver. The New York center table with stone top
is flanked by British upholstered furniture,
including a settee from c. 1755 and armchairs, the furthest in the style of Giles
Grendey (1693–1780) and dating to c. 1745.
On the table is a silver coffeepot by Thomas
Whipham (active 1739–1785), 1752. Facing
it on an Irish kettle stand with dolphin feet
are a kettle and stand by John Edwards (active
1788–1811), London, 1801. On the dressing
table (far left) with carving by Nicolas Bernard and Martin Jugiez is an English silver
shell-shaped cake basket with dolphin feet c.
1745. Also visible are four of six Philadelphia
side chairs from c. 1765 with carving attributed to Pollard. Collector Don Oxenhandler
considers them to have the best legs in the
South. The highly three-dimensionally carved
white pine pelmets probably date to the early
twentieth century. In the right corner is a
Philadelphia slant-front desk, c. 1770, with
an elaborately carved interior by Pollard using the same device as on the aprons of the
chairs. The carpet is a Tabriz c. 1900.
Fig. 8. Certainly a favorite in the collection is
the diminutive (less than 40 inches at the
waist) Philadelphia chest-on-chest from the
collection of Mrs. Lammot Du Pont Copeland. The cast brasses and much of the carving are original, the latter attributed to Jugiez.
Alan Miller recently restored bits of the scroll
board carving and carved the cartouche. In
front of it is one of a pair of British stools
with period gros-point needlework coverings
and gadrooned edges on the aprons.
Fortunately
Cottage Gardens has
the high ceilings that
suit the Krouses’
assemblage of rococo
furniture
the revered architect A. Hays Town (1903–2005) for
then owners and preservationists William and Sarah
McGehee. Cottage Gardens was thus the childhood
home of the McGehees’ daughter, antiques dealer Millie McGehee, who came of age at parties in its basement,
where she is said to have performed her famed naked
antler dance—sadly before the days of YouTube.
The gardens from which the house took its name were
swept away in the Civil War and its aftermath, but
remnants of the old cedar-lined semicircular drive re-
mained, along with a number of craggy gracious old
southern live oaks. Landscape designer William Garbo
has taken advantage of these, as well as two ancient
cisterns and sections of original stone paving, to reestablish a somewhat formal layout with informal plantings. Several large sugar kettles have been added as well
as a charming reconstructed pigeonnier.
The current owners, Betty Jo and Jerry Krouse, bought
the property in 1985 and made few changes to the house
itself. Fortunately, Cottage Gardens has the high ceilings
Fig. 9. In one corner of the parlor is the tallcase clock that was the first major piece Jerold
Krouse purchased. The brass and silvered engraved dial is signed “Careel Christoffel, Amsterdamn.” Like many pieces in the house, it
was made in Philadelphia, has details attributed to the anonymous craftsman known as
the Garvan carver, and dates to 1750–1760.
Fig. 10. Some of the most elegant carving in
the Cottage Gardens collection is on this
Philadelphia card table, which descended in
the Stevenson and Lowry families. The balland-claw-foot table of c. 1765 has a crusty old
finish and carving by Hercules Courtenay
(1744–1784).
Fig. 11. Light streams into a
corner of the dining room. An
Irish card table, illustrated in
the Knight of Glin and Peill’s
Irish Furniture, holds a water
cooler with spout and a pair
of eighteenth-century brass
candlesticks. Above it is an
English mahogany and parcel
gilt looking glass, c. 1740. In
front of the window is another from the set of six Philadelphia side chairs with carving
by Pollard.
Fig. 12. Two sets of mid-eighteenth-century chairs (one set
may be Scottish) surround the
early nineteenth-century English dining table. On it is a
notable epergne with an unusually large number of baskets (nine), it is date marked
for 1757 and with “TP,” prob­­­­­
ably by Thomas Pitts (active
c. 1740–1780). On the right
wall is a large mid-eighteenthcentury Irish serving table
with an apron heavily carved
with birds and foliage.
Fig. 13. The imposing Governor Simon Snyder (1759–
1818) high chest of drawers
commands the dining room
and opposes its matching
dressing table in the adjoining
parlor. Made in Philadelphia
in the late 1750s, the pair was
reunited in the 1980s for the
Stanley Paul Sax collection
with the help of the Israel
Sack firm. The lower drawers
and legs have carving attributed to Bernard and upper parts
of the high chest and original
cartouche to Jugiez, the more
confident and accomplished
carver of the two.
and finely proportioned rooms that suit the Krouses’
assemblage of Irish and colonial rococo furniture—as
well as the occasional piece from England or Scotland.
Jerry Krouse is a brilliant raconteur, ribald jokester,
accomplished composer, and former scrap dealer. He is
also a passionate collector with a healthy sense of humor
about the intricate byways of the antiques business and a
refreshing candor about his beginnings as a total antiques
naif. “All I knew about antiques,” he says of his early days
as a potential collector, “was that I liked the feet with
little claws grasping balls. That led me straight to the
middle of the eighteenth century. Thank you God!” There
were a number of misadventures, misunderstandings, and
even a few missed bids on the rocky road to serious collecting. But what began with little carved feet grew to
include rococo cartouches and carved bust finials.
lthough exuberantly decorated Philadelphia
furniture was the bait, Krouse initially figured
that buying high style Irish pieces of the same
period would give him, as he says, “Philadelphia on the
A
“I liked the feet
with little claws
grasping balls. That
led me straight to
the middle of the
eighteenth century.
Thank you God!”
Fig. 14. Detail of the tall-case clock
also seen in Fig. 1.
Fig. 15. Transformed in the 1960s
with antique cypress paneling, carefully chosen by former owner, lumberman William C. McGehee, the
library holds one of the great mystery
pieces in the collection. The mahogany mirrored-door desk-and-bookcase
with broken pediment of c. 1750 has
superfluous shallow carving in the
Scottish taste, but secondary woods
from both Britain and the American
South. Undoubtedly produced in the
British Isles with exported colonial
wood, it is an important and powerful piece of mid-eighteenth-century
furniture. Flanking it is a pair of New
York side chairs of c. 1770. In the
center of the room is a scalloped-top
mahogany tea table made in Philadelphia c. 1760 with embellishments
by the Garvan carver. The two armchairs are British.
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cheap.” He is still passionate about his Irish collection
and adds to it, but he was inevitably drawn to great
Philadelphia pieces from the third quarter of the eighteenth century. After his first major purchase in this
field, an eighteenth-century Philadelphia tall-case clock
(Fig. 9), one of five with details by the so-called Garvan
carver, Krouse reports that he sat down to a lunch of
dainty, crustless finger sandwiches at the home of the
Pennsylvania dealer who sold him the clock. “Two
thoughts were running through my mind,” he remembers. “How am I going to pay for this damn thing
without my father and uncle finding out? And I can’t
believe that after I paid $120,000 for his clock, this is
what he serves me for lunch!”
atchez is a town where most of the serious collections are of mid-nineteenth-century rococo
revival furniture from Philadelphia and New
York acquired in the years before the Civil War. The
Krouses have taken a step further back in time and
purchased mid-eighteenth-century rococo furniture
from those renowned furniture-producing cities. Quietly, mostly through the guidance of Alan Miller, they
have amassed a superb collection
of American furniture including
several revered masterpieces
and a number of unpublished
masterworks.
The couple did not envision
a restrained, neutral interior
for their collection, nor did they
want anything like the nineteenthcentury pageantry that typifies
Natchez interior design. There
would be no velvet, floral fabrics,
or wallpaper, and certainly no lace.
It was decided that fabrics of
vivid indigo blue and a fairly bright
yellow would be strong enough to
stand up to the powerfully designed
furniture. It was also decided that
the effect would not be period
correct but period sympathetic.
A set of antique carved pelmets
with phoenixes and rococo scrolls
was found in New York, and these
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Antiques
added some carving and gave the necessary weight to
the upper parts of the parlor (Fig. 7). They also provided shaped eighteenth-century style headings for the
yellow silk curtains, which included swags, long jabots,
and tassels and tiebacks in blue and yellow. The walls
were painted pale yellow through most of the ground
floor.
In the library, however, where Hays Town added pale
cypress woodwork, the walls were glazed bright dark red,
a splendid foil for a mahogany mirror-doored desk-andbookcase with gilded cartouche (Fig. 15). In the ground
floor bedroom, red was used again for the hangings of a
British bed from around 1760 (Fig. 17). A Philadelphia
easy chair from the same period is a recent acquisition
and has carved legs with their original crusty finish.
The large sideboard table in the entrance epitomizes
everything about Irish Georgian furniture that the
Krouses came to love: original mahogany top, crazy
satyr’s mask, oak-leaf swags with acorns, a pierced acanthus frieze with a diapered background, and hairy lion’spaw feet (Fig. 2). But this grand table has to compete
with a major Philadelphia piece: the circa 1780 rococo
tall-case clock with works by Jacob Godshalk (see Figs.
1, 14). Made in the shop of George Pickering, the clock
has carving attributed to John Pollard and features a
painted moon face, typical of the post-Revolutionary
period. The desk-and-bookcase of about 1770 at the
back of the hall has what is arguably the most elaborately carved interior of any desk produced in America.
The chest-on-chest in the parlor is one of the finest
examples of Philadelphia rococo furniture (Fig. 8). For
many years it was the centerpiece of Pamela and Lammot
du Pont Copeland’s collection at Mount Cuba in
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One of the
Krouses’ most exciting
acquisitions was the
rare matching high
chest and dressing
table with carving by
Bernard and Jugiez
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Alan Miller describes Krouse as
“aesthetically driven, culturally literate,
well informed, eccentric, and wonderful”
Fig. 16. The much exhibited high
chest in the bedroom was in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
from 1918 to 2005. It was made
for Joseph Moulder (1722–1779)
in Philadelphia, 1765–1780,
possibly in Randolph’s shop; it
has carving by Courtenay and
retains its original hardware and
cartouche. On the left is a mahogany side chair from the set
made for Richard and Elizabeth
Armitt Waln with carving attributed to the Garvan carver. Its
sterling provenance includes Joe
Kindig Jr. Antiques, Stratford
Hall Plantation, and the Fairmount Park Commission. On
the opposite side is an Irish mahogany side chair.
Delaware. With peerless proportions and sinuous carving by Bernard and Jugiez, it is commanding and impressive, yet intimate and approachable.
ne of the Krouses’ most exciting acquisitions
was the rare matching high chest and dressing
table with carving also by Bernard and Jugiez.
The pieces face each other, the former in the dining room
and the latter opposite it in the parlor (see Figs. 7, 13).
They were reunited in 1980 after almost 125 years by the
collector Stanley Paul Sax. When
the pair came up at auction at
Sotheby’s after Sax’s death in 1998,
Jerry Krouse tried to acquire them
but left as the underbidder. On
finding that the dealer Albert Sack
was the successful bidder, Krouse
purchased the set from him.
Jerry Krouse continues to
maintain very high aesthetic
standards for his collection, placing appearance over rarity, propor-
O
tion over provenance, carving over condition. He is also
voluble in expressing his gratitude to Alan Miller, renowned scholar, carver, restorer, detective, and contrarian whom he calls “The Great One,” for instruction and
guidance. Miller, in turn, describes Krouse as “an aesthetically driven collector, culturally literate, well informed,
eccentric, and wonderful.” The Krouses enjoy their
collection in a way that allows their home to exemplify
down-home southern warmth. They have welcomed
visitors from Milwaukee to Dublin who come to Natchez to savor
the Cottage Gardens collection
and absorb a little of the exuberant spirit that has brought it together.
RALPH HARVARD, who assisted with
the decoration of this house, is an antiquarian and interior designer based in New York.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
Fig. 17. The bedroom has a remarkable English mahogany
high-post bed of c. 1760, one of
four eighteenth-century beds in
the house. Perfect for high-ceilinged southern rooms, the posts
are unusually tall and support
an original carved architectonic
cornice. The cluster-columned
posts themselves are carved with
winding floral and fruit vines,
acanthus-carved urns, and several rings of egg-and-dart molding.
Unusual features include the
carved rails (hidden by the
coverlet) and old-fashioned (for
1760) paneled backboard. The
bed also retains its original pulley system for bed hangings. The
shapely Philadelphia easy chair
(c. 1765) too is untouched, with
original finish and crisp carving
attributed to the same anonymous carver (probably Butts)
who worked on the Fox chest in
the hall. Typically Irish, the reading stand has carved diaper panels, drapery swags, and dolphin
feet.
Fig. 18. Detail of the side chair
at the left in Fig. 16.
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