We recently restored a 1756 bowfat (china closet) in the Woodford parlor. Restoration of the closet restores a significant feature of the original house and helps us convey how Woodford's early families used the Parlor as a dining room, a living room, a home office, and a place to take tea with friends and family. Now installed in the bowfat are examples of Chinese export porcelain, silver, English Delftware, and other household objects that would have been found in this type of space. Read on to learn how it went from being a china closet to clothes closet sometime in the 19th century, then a bookcase in the late 1920s, and other discoveries made along the way. 

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1756

When Woodford was built in 1756 the parlor had a china cupboard (bowfat or buffet) to the left of the fireplace. A china cupboard/buffet/bowfat was a standard feature in the home of a wealthy person at this time as separate dining rooms and related furniture such as sideboards had not yet come into being. Stenton, Cliveden, Mt. Pleasant, Powel House all feature 18th-century buffets and you can see reproduction buffets at Winterthur and Colonial Williamsburg.

 

Late 19th century

Our restoration project uncovered physical evidence that the bottom two shelves were removed and a set of hooks were installed in the newly opened space; the top two shelves were retained. That leads us to believe that the buffet was most likely first modified when it was used as the headquarters for the Fairmount Park Guards. They would have gained storage for coats on the hooks and storage for hats on the top two shelves. 

 

1927-1930

When the Naomi Wood Trust became the new custodian of Woodford in 1926, they worked with architect John P.B. Sinkler, former architect of the City of Philadelphia (1920-1924) and the future second trustee of the Trust (1943-1958). Sinkler spent three years modifying and updating the mansion to turn it into a museum. Through the bowfat restoration project we learned it was in this period that the top two shelves were probably removed, new facing material added to the back wall of the closet, new sides and adjustable shelving installed, and the closet transformed into a built-in bookcase. 

 

2018

Since the parlor is one of only two original 1756 rooms in the mansion (Front Entrance Hallway being the other) yet the bookcase had bookshelves with metal adjusters, obviously not an original 18th-century feature, we decided to investigate what might be found behind the 20th-century shelving.

 

We had the Fairmount Park Conservancy remove the 20th-century shelves, exposing the original rear wall of the closet. There, we could see spaces between the rows of original wall paneling from where the four original shelves had once been housed. We could also see the evidence of the clothes hooks where they had once been attached. We carried out a historic paint analysis of the closet, which revealed that the paint color was made with a mixture of Prussian Blue and lead white pigments, and that the walls and the inside of the closet doors had been painted this color. So, we knew by then the closet had once contained shelves.

 

What we did not know is what shape(s) the original shelves might have been, and whether they had been painted. In the 18th century, some buffets had elaborately shaped or scalloped shelves, others had plain rectangular shelves, or a combination of the two. Some shelves were left unpainted or only painted on the leading edge, and some were fully painted. So, the question was–what did ours look like? 

 

2024-2025

Independent conservator Jonathan Stevens examined the closet to create a historically accurate restoration based on physical evidence. During the course of his removal of additional wood that had been added to the side walls of the closet, he found what he believed might be remnants of the original closet shelves. These shelves had been cut up and recycled to space the new side walls of the closet out from the original side walls. When he removed them, he was able to reconstruct fragments of the shelves and determine some of their original locations based on nail holes and paint evidence. This evidence also strongly suggests that the original shelves were rectangular in shape, rather than a more ornate design, and shows that they were painted on their top and bottom sides as well as on their leading edge. The temporary removal of the original closet top during the project led to the discovery of early construction materials that had been discarded inside of the walls, including an old hand-forged iron chisel, likely used either in the construction of the original Mansion between 1756-58, or during construction of the David Franks addition in 1771-1772.