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What We Learn from the Stephen Girard Collection – by Elizabeth Laurent – Former Director of Historic Resources, Girard College

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What We Learn from the Stephen Girard Collection – by Elizabeth Laurent – Former Director of Historic Resources, Girard College Click Here to Return to Home Page and Main Menu Real and Rare: What We Learn from the Stephen Girard Collection – By Elizabeth Laurent – Former Director of Historic Resources, Girard College A joy of my job is The Archives holds Stephen Girard’s Papers, a collection sharing the Stephen available on microfilm to researchers at the Philadelphia’s Girard Collection with American Philosophical Society. The Girard Papers current Girard College include over 800 boxes of “loose” papers of incoming students. Sometimes, correspondence; receipts; lists; construction, garden and the students, seeing ship records; and architectural I’m so much older than drawings. We have three they, figure I must have thousand of Girard’s bound been alive in the 1800’s volumes, including year-by- and ask, “Mrs. Laurent, year receipt books, copies of his did you know Stephen outgoing correspondence, ship Portrait of Stephen Girard Girard?” By Bass Otis, 1832 log books, maps, bank records This is a funny but reasonable question. They rightly and his personal library. wonder how I know anything about Stephen Girard. At our museum in The glory of the Stephen Founder’s Hall on the Girard Collection is how Girard College campus, its authentic and varied we preserve thousands objects give us a sense of of objects from Girard’s the man. The artifacts Philadelphia townhouse: reflect their owner, being a Founder’s Hall on the Girard College his furniture, silver, Girard’s bound volumes personal collection of items sculpture, paintings, prints both plain and fancy. and porcelain. The collection also includes everyday items, It is rare for a man’s artifacts and archives to remain together like his clothing, darned socks and toupee; and household long after his death. While generations of history curators textiles like tablecloths, kitchen towels and over thirty bed have been trained to make well-informed guesses about sheets! what a famous person might have owned, with the Girard Collection such guesswork is unnecessary. The objects we have were Girard’s. He had no children, so his things were not divided among his descendants. Girard’s items were not sold after his death because of his Will’s instruction that his school should set aside a few rooms for his papers and things. So let’s explore a few examples of what we can learn from Girard’s object and papers. furniture made of solid ebony in his Philadelphia? Species of Ebony trees grew in southern India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and western Africa. For centuries, ebony had been prized for its almost black color, its density (it sinks in water) and how its fine texture gives a polished, smooth finish. Girard’s rich contemporaries may have coveted furniture made from this exotic wood. By 1807, Girard had been trading in ebony wood from Mauritius for several years. His international shipping empire enabled Girard to acquire enough ebony to have a Ebony Suite full suite made for his Parlor. But even Girard could not get quite enough ebony … and the side rails of both tables are The most famous items in the collection are Girard’s “ebonized” or black-finished pieces of an unrelated wood suite of ebony furniture: two armchairs, 10 side chairs, because Haines ran out of ebony! a settee, and pair of marble-top tables. Along with his ebony suite, is Girard’s surviving 1807 bill for $563.00 from Girard’s suite of ebony furniture was so famous around town, Philadelphia furniture maker Ephraim Haines. Haines that when Bass Otis painted the 1832 posthumous portrait, he showed Girard seated in one of the ebony armchairs. So, this cluster of furniture, documents, shipping records and painting combines to show us what we can learn of Girard from his surviving collection. 1807 bill for $563.00 from Philadelphia furniture maker Ephraim Haines lived at 100 North Water Street, a few blocks from Girard’s home at 23 North Water Street. We can wonder how they came to know each other, or how Girard hired Haines to build the furniture, but we know the men shared a Philadelphia neighborhood. Their business transaction was between Girard’s home at 23 North Water Street neighbors – the antithesis of today’s Market Street Watercolor online shopping. Girard’s 1807 watercolor of Market Street painted by Moving outward from the suite’s fabrication, what can James John Barallet, links the Philadelphia of his time to we learn from Girard’s elegant suite, famous as the only today’s city. As a conservative investor, Girard considered real estate an admirable asset. In the early 19th century, Marble Sculptures of Bonaparte and the Philosophers Girard saw how the city would inevitably spread westward, Other groups of artifacts and and bought an entire block of Center City Philadelphia in documents demonstrate the the path of city development, the block on the south side nuances of what mattered to of Market Street between 11th and 12th Streets. On that Girard. Particularly revealing are block was the big brick townhouse owned by John Dunlap three surviving marble sculpture who had printed the Declaration of Independence – a home busts, of Emperor Napoleon sometimes mistaken for Girard’s similar brick townhouse Bonaparte and Enlightenment over on Water Street. Philosophers Rousseau and Voltaire. It is no surprise that the anti-Royalist Girard would have admired Napoleon. But along Napoleon Bonaparte with the sculpture of Bonaparte, is the surviving 1817 letter written in French from Napoleon’s older brother Joseph Bonaparte, giving the sculpture to The watercolor is a lively view of that era’s city, depicting figures and vehicles on the rutted, unpaved street, a street lined with Lombardy poplar trees, and the city’s brick food Philosopher Rousseau Philosopher Voltaire markets in the far distance. Generations of Philadelphians remember the same block as Girard and describing it as a “good likeness.” (Joseph signed the home of Snellenberg’s the letter the “Comte de Survillier,” his alias in America Department Store, and since the while pretending no one knew him to be a Bonaparte!) early 20th century, it has been Joseph Bonaparte represents a unique friendship of Girard’s latter years Snellenberg’s Department Store the location of the Girard Estate combining both business Offices. So, in this 1807 view and social with mutual of the Market Street of Girard’s interests in gardening and time, this painting tells stories construction. stretching from the Declaration While the Bonaparte of Independence to today’s sculpture was a gift, governance of Stephen Girard’s Girard purchased the school at the Girard Estate offices. busts of Rousseau and Voltaire, and displayed Letter from Girard Estate Offices Joseph Bonaparte them together in one He literally sent those ships around the world, spreading room. (At the time of the names of the great Enlightenment philosophers. So by Girard’s death, the three starting with one sculpture, our interrelated books, and ship sculptures were in “Back Page from Girard’s room-by-room documents show us the role of Enlightenment philosophy Parlor, Up Stairs”) In 1832 Estate inventory, listing the three in Girard’s life. sculptures furnishing one’s home Haitian Immigrant Cabinetmakers with sculptures of recognizable individuals, it is reasonable One final example of how our museum artifacts explain to assume that an owner would select individuals of personal issues in Girard life. significance. Recall Thomas Jefferson’s memorable Dining Room at Monticello with its sculpture busts of Washington, The same year as Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever Franklin, Lafayette and John Paul Jones. So, it is correct epidemic, the Caribbean island of Haiti was embroiled in to read meaning into Girard’s selection of Rousseau and what would become the world’s only successful black-led Voltaire. slave revolt that led to the creation of a Stephen Girard was a man of the Enlightenment. The school nation. Many whites he envisioned in his Will was an Enlightenment institution fled revolutionary dedicated to the concept that man could advance toward Haiti. Some came to perfection through his own energies. A popular definition Philadelphia including of the Enlightenment would be “a European philosophical two Haitian émigré movement of the l7th and 18th centuries, characterized by cabinetmakers, Jean- belief in the power of reason and by innovations in political, Baptiste Laurent and religious, and educational doctrine.” Charles Dombaille. Girard chose the All of his long life, sculptures of Rousseau Girard remembered and Voltaire to display Armoire by Laurent and Dombaille what it had been like his knowledge and to be an immigrant interest in Enlightenment to Philadelphia. He philosophy. Working consistently befriended outward from the and dealt with other sculptures, our collections Some of Girard’s seventy volume set of refugees to his adopted Voltaire from his personal library include Girard’s 70+ city. Somehow Laurent volume set of Voltaire (in French, of course) as part of and Dombaille came to his personal library. Some Log Books and many archival Girard’s attention, and boxes are filled with documents of his four ships Girard Girard helped them named Helvetius, Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire. start in business by commissioning them to make at least three pieces of furniture: a surviving armoire, a glass-doored Display cabinet by Laurent and Dombaille display cabinet, and a marble-top buffet. Documents between Girard and the cabinetmakers in 1796 and 1797 confirm the transactions. Storage Boxes for Girard’s papers for ships Rousseau and Helvetius Without those documents, today’s furniture scholars (Garry Norton) would glance at these three pieces and assume they had been made in Louisiana or the Caribbean. But the documents (and an analysis of the Buffet by Laurent and Dombaille secondary woods proving use of wood typical in American manufacture) provide rare proof of Museum room view (Garry Norton) pieces with authentic French construction techniques and appearance, being documented as made in Philadelphia.
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