Utility And Beauty: Robert Wellford and Composition Ornament in America (Studies in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Art and Culture)

Made of a synthetic paste and forced into finely carved moulds, composition ornament graced mantels and other woodwork in American buildings between 1790 and 1820. Robert Wellford of Philadelphia was the foremost American practitioner of the art. This book presents Wellford's life, craft, business, and ornament, as well as the work of his competitors, from New England to the deep south.