Posts Categorized: Furniture and Decorative Arts

The cylinder-top desk was used by Jay while he was governor and then at the Homestead during his retirement. John Jay’s desktop got heavy use as Jay was an active manager of his farm and a prolific letter writer. The desk was made in New York around 1790.

This Chinese export porcelain soup plate is part of John and Sarah Jay’s wedding china. It was decorated with enamels and gold in Canton around 1773.

Like many gentlemen of his time, John Jay had scientific interests as well as political and historical ones. Jay had an interest in astronomy, and this was his celestial globe, illustrating the constellations. It was made by the Bardin brothers of London around 1800.

This is one of a set of twenty-six armchairs made around 1789 for use in the United States Senate Chamber in Federal Hall in New York City. After New York stopped being the national capital in 1791, it continued to be the state capital, and the chairs found a new use as part of the…

According to Jay family tradition, this silk suit, made in the French taste, was worn by John Jay on the day in 1782 when Benjamin Franklin introduced him to the Foreign Minister of King Louis XVI of France. Jay and Franklin were in Paris for the negotiation of the treaty that would end the Revolutionary…

The oval bezel of this small stickpin holds a clipping of George Washington’s hair. In 1778, Washington gave a lock of his hair as a remembrance to his friends, John and Sarah Jay, as they were leaving America for Spain, where John Jay was to serve as U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary. Years later, in 1794, Sarah…

This beautiful example of English Neoclassical silverwork is the handle of John Jay’s dress sword, which he is believed to have acquired when he was in London negotiating the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794.