Thomas Affleck


Thomas Affleck was an 18th-century American cabinetmaker, who specialized in furniture in the Philadelphia Chippendale style.

Biography

He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland to a devout Quaker family. There is no documentation of where he learned his trade, but, based on stylistic similarities to his later work, it is conjectured that he apprenticed under Edinburgh cabinetmaker Alexander Peter. He moved to London in 1760, and immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1763. That same year, John Penn, a grandson of Pennsylvania's founder William Penn, arrived in Philadelphia and was sworn in as governor of the Colony. One of Affleck's first major commissions came in 1766 for a substantial set of furniture for Governor John Penn and his bride, Anne Allen, daughter of William Allen, the Colony's richest resident.
Affleck's first shop was on Union Street. By 1768 he had moved to Second Street, south of Dock Creek. In 1771 he married Isabella Gordon, and was censured by his fellow Quakers for marrying "out of Meeting." The couple had six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Isabella died in 1782, and he never remarried.
Another major commission was for furnishing the Second Street city house of John and Elizabeth Cadwalader. For this Affleck was joined by fellow cabinetmaker Benjamin Randolph, and carvers Hercules Courtenay, John Pollard, Nicholas Bernard, and Martin Jugiez. Cadwalader's receipts for the work survive at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, although determining which cabinetmaker made which piece sometimes must be based on attribution.
He participated in 1776 protests against war with Great Britain, but it is unclear whether he was a Loyalist, a pacifist, or both. He was deemed a "dangerous person"—along with a number of his fellow Quakers—in August 1777, and banished to Virginia in October. Seven months later he was allowed to return to Philadelphia. He did not fight in the American Revolutionary War on either side.
Merchant Levi Hollingsworth was a patron and friend of Affleck's. A suite of furniture with identically carved legs - twin high chests, matching twin dressing tables, a set of 8 chairs, twin pie-crust tea tables - descended in the Hollingsworth family. During the war, Affleck sometimes traded furniture to Hollingsworth for materials and other goods. One of the pie-crust tea tables was traded to Hollingsworth for a 7-gallon cask of rum.
He moved his shop to Elmslie's Court in 1791. In 1790 Philadelphia became the temporary national capital for a 10-year period, while Washington, D.C. was under construction. Affleck may have made the chairs in Congress Hall for the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
Affleck died in 1795. His eldest son, Lewis, continued as a cabinetmaker.

Examples of his work

Three additional Marlborough-leg armchairs from the set are in private collections. One sold at Christie's New York in 2007 for $1,049,000.

Cadwalader furniture

Made for John and Elizabeth Cadwalader. The furniture consisted of at least thirteen chairs, a pair of serpentine-front sofas, a pair of card tables, an easy chair, and four fire screens.