brian cassidy bookselle

27.
[Design]: [Furniture]
[Archive of Drawings
from the P. Hanson Hiss
Manufacturing Co.]
(Baltimore), (ca. 1880s)
44 furniture design drawings
with various notations. Sizes
from 6.5” x 8” to 18.5” x 11.5”
approx. Most in pen on a variety
of board, two on onion skin. One
finished in watercolor (left).
Two albumen photos mounted to
board (below) measuring 16.75” x
6.5” approx. Some stains, edgewear,
foxing. Very good overall.
Archive of furniture designs —
likely both production and promotional, as well as client — from furniture
maker P. Hanson Hiss Manufacturing, headquartered in downtown
Baltimore but with additional addresses in Washington, D.C. and New
York. Drawings illustrate various furnitures produced by the company,
from contemporary styles and practical office furniture to Louis XIII
chairs and a classic English chesterfield. A variety of desks, tables,
chairs, bookcases, bureaus, panels, and like also present. Notations
include dimensions, inventory numbers, prices, and clients — among
them downtown Baltimore neighbors William Lanahan and Son, makers of
the iconic Hunter Baltimore Rye. Hanson Hiss also designed interiors
and was most famously responsible for the Garrett family's Evergreen
House, now a part of Johns Hopkins. Hiss & Co. flourished in the midlate
1800s before declaring bankruptcy around the turn of the century,
and as the National Park Service noted in their Historic American
Building Survey of Evergreen, “Little is known about the firm.” A significant
and evocative collection, and a remarkable survival.
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