The brothers John and Hugh Finlay first advertised their wares in the Baltimore Federal Gazette of January 25, 1803. For nearly the next four decades, sometimes working together and sometimes singly, they provided the citizens of that growing and thriving city with such high-style painted furniture as this Grecian couch. At one time, their shop employed as many as sixty-eight craftsmen, including thirty men, thirteen boys, and twenty-five women. They remained current with the changing modes of Neoclassicism; Hugh Finlay, to whom this couch is attributed, even traveled for several months of 1810 in Europe, where he acquired "a number of Drawings, from furniture in the first houses in Paris and London" that he shipped back to his Baltimore shop to use as sources of inspiration for customers seeking "the most approved articles" of furniture.

This text was adapted from Ward, et al., MFA Highlights: American Decorative Arts & Sculpture (Boston, 2006) available at www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications.html.

---