User:Heidi Pribell/sandbox

Appleton, Thomas (April 2, 1763- April 28,1840), visionary for American culture, first enterprising American art dealer and first American U.S. consul at Livorno, was born in Boston, the son of Nathaniel Appleton (1731-1798), a merchant and U.S. Commissioner of Loans, and his second wife, Rachel Henderson. A member of a prominent Massachusetts Bay colony family, he was baptized in Cambridge by his grandfather, Reverend Nathaniel Appleton.

His prominent Massachusetts family was founded by Samuel Appleton, born in 1586, who landed with his family in Ipswich, Essex County in 1636. His descendants continued on to serve in the military and to become reverends, doctors, merchants, politicians, state officials and Harvard professors.

Thomas belonged to the sixth Appleton generation on American soil, descending from Samuel’s son John (1622-1699). His great-grandfather John Appleton (1652-1739), a judge, married Elizabeth Rogers, daughter of John Rogers, a president of Harvard College. Their eldest son Nathaniel (1693-1784), born in Ipswich, graduated from Harvard in 1712, moved to Cambridge and was ordained in 1717. That year Reverend Nathaniel Appleton, with help from Harvard’s president, John Leverett, a relative of his wife Margaret Gibbs, succeeded Reverend William Brattle at the First Church. He served at the Cambridge pulpit, located at the center of Harvard Square where Lehman Hall now stands from 1717-1779, while teaching students at Harvard and a fellow of Harvard’s corporation.

Thomas’s father Nathaniel (1731-1798) was one the Reverend’s twelve children. After graduating from Harvard in1749 with classmate Robert Treat Paine, he chose a secular life, married Rachel Henderson and settled in Boston, where his nine children were raised. For a few years they lived in a house between Washington and Devonshire Street and then bought an old house between School and Bromfield Street. Nathaniel Appleton, a merchant and candle manufacturer, became engaged in the “Society for Encouraging Trade and Commerce,” in 1764 and was elected warden. In the following years he was part of several commissions including one to inspect schools and to control street lighting. In 1768 he signed the Non-Importation Agreement and joined the Sons of Liberty. In 1769 he writes of attending an annual banquet at the Liberty Tree Tavern celebrating the resistance to the Stamp Act of 1765. As one of the three hundred guests, he mentions John Adams, referring to him as future president of the United States. When in September 1774 Samuel Adams and Thomas Cushing left for the Continental Congress, Nathaniel Appleton and Joseph Warren took their place at the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the ‘de facto’ government of Massachusetts outside of Boston. The circumstances in Boston were worsening and in January 1775 Appleton moved his family and business to Salem. After the Battle of Bunker Hill, Nathaniel moved his family to Andover. Once the British were evacuated from Boston in March 1776, Appleton again assumed possession of his Boston home. In 1777, he becomes U.S. Commissioner of Loans, a post he held until his death in 1798.

Thomas Appleton’s birth, in 1783, the same year marking the end of the French-Indian war, also defines the start of a generation of Americans who matured just as our country was evolving. Thomas was five years old in 1768, when his father joined the Sons of Liberty. By the time the Revolutionary War broke out, in April 19, 1775, he had just turned twelve years of age. Once the British were expelled from town, the Appleton family resumed living in their Boston home and Thomas, at age thirteen, would have heard the Declaration of Independence read aloud from the balcony of the Old State House on July 18, 1776. The war for American liberty began in Thomas’ hometown and indelibly shaped his childhood.

In 1781 Thomas Appleton graduated from Harvard College, a classmate of America’s first-born architect, Charles Bulfinch. At the age of twenty-three and with a visceral appreciation for liberty, Thomas set sail in 1786, carrying a letter of introduction from Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin to Thomas Jefferson, who at the time was the U.S. ambassador to France. As a young man Thomas Appleton set foot in Paris soon after the American Revolutionary War and landed within Thomas Jefferson’s inner circle. A year later Appleton’s father, Nathaniel, wrote Jefferson sincerely thanking him for the kind interest he’d taken in his son since Thomas’s arrival in Paris, along with an invoice for 230lbs, or 8x boxes, of spermaceti candles. Here in Paris, Thomas Appleton and Thomas Jefferson established a friendship maintained with life-long correspondence.

On July 4th 1789 we find Appleton at a defining moment in world history. Thomas Jefferson threw a dinner party in Paris, gathering his closest friends to celebrate. When the meal was over and most of the twenty-four guests had left, there were eight members of the dinner party still remaining. These friends presented a signed Tribute honoring Jefferson, expressing their fervent gratitude for his accomplishments & their loyalty to him. Those in attendance included Joel Barlow, who wrote the document; James Swan, financier of our American Revolution; John Paradise, first U.S. naturalized citizen; and Philip Mazzei who, among many things, procured arms during our revolution. The significance of this evening was profound for Thomas Appleton. Ten days later, the Bastille was stormed. He not only survived the American Revolution, but lived through the French Revolution as well!

Beginning with Jefferson’s support in 1797, Thomas Appleton was confirmed by General George Washington as America’s 1st Consul in Livorno, Italy, as John Adams was assuming office. The position of consul necessitated deriving income from elsewhere. Appleton chose to make his living as an exporter specializing in works of art, marble statuary and various ornamental items of classical taste. Given Appleton’s proximity to Carrara, he advantageously became a principle source of Italian marble statuary for the United States. Because Appleton and Charles Bulfinch were classmates, it’s easy to surmise that the brisk trade in marble mantelpieces sent to Boston was, in part, owed to Bulfinch’s architectural practice. But income from merchandising art & architectural sculpture came through clients ranging from Boston to North Carolina. His account book, held at the Boston Public Library, details his business endeavors and reveals he acted as Thomas Jefferson's agent throughout his lifetime.

Establishing an American culture & heritage worthy of our new democracy were aspirations discussed while living in Paris. Thomas Appleton devoted himself to this cause, having experienced democratic victory on two political fronts, Appleton was keen to commemorate the accomplishment of establishing liberty as a right of man. Evidence of these contributions to our budding American Aesthetic include his correspondence in 1805 with architect Benjamin Latrobe coordinating transportation of Italian craftsmen, sculptors and the Carrera marble used for building our first Capital in Washington D.C., a project planned & constructed by President Jefferson during his two terms as president.

Also in 1805, Thomas Appleton ships two “very elegant” mantelpieces to Boston. Both were sculptural masterpieces carved from Carrara marble. One commemorates the American Revolution with a narrative honoring both our pivotal friendship (alliance) with France and the value of liberty. The second is designed to represent a grand democratic civilization, our United States government. His account book describes the designs as “very elegant Statuary Marble: Chimney:pieces agreeably to directions” and together these instruct us with a captivating tale, emboldened by Thomas Appleton’s childhood experiences.

In 1807 he enlisted a successful Austrian die-cutter to work as an engraver at the U.S. Mint. Moritz Furst immigrated in 1808, his bronzes of American War Heroes won acclaim and he is still considered to be one of the most outstanding die-cutters in the history of the U.S. Mint.

Appleton capitalized on the precious fact that he sought, procured and gained possession in 1808, of the original Washington plaster bust by Giuseppe Ceracchi. It was sculpted from life in 1791, when George agreed begrudgingly to sit motionless while in Philadelphia. Thomas Appleton is responsible for commissioning more than a dozen authentic busts of George Washington that exist today – whether plain or in heroic garb, examples are now found in the National Portrait Gallery, the New York Public Library and the White House.

Thomas married Vincenza Trentanove, his housekeeper, in 1812. Their daughter Minerva Eurosina was born in1813

Collaborating with Antonio Canova in 1816 is his most outstanding accomplishment. With a recommendation from Jefferson, Thomas Appleton commissioned a colossal marble statue of George Washington sculpted on behalf of the State of North Carolina. He conceived of the seated format, and was responsible for designing the bas-relief narratives describing events in Washington’s life that surrounded its pedestal base. Raimondo Trentanove (1792-1832), Vincenza’s brother worked with Appleton sculpting the pedestal base as an assistant to Canova.

From 1823-25 Thomas Jefferson relied on Appleton’s judgement for designing components in architectural projects both at Monticello and at The Rotunda for building the University of Virginia.

Thomas Appleton created a legacy of cultural heritage for America drawn from classical antiquity much as the Romans appropriated their culture from Greece. He capitalized on his circumstance with grit and ambition by hiring sculptors from Tuscany; purchasing marble from the nearby quarries of Carrara, used since the time of ancient Rome; and by utilizing the port of Livorno for shipping of his merchandise. Although he never returned to America, his passion for classical antiquity together with his loyalty & devotion to Thomas Jefferson, left more of a cultural legacy for America than many of the founding fathers.

Thomas Appleton died in Livorno and built a legacy devoted to fulfilling Jefferson’s architectural ambitions and should be recognized for his enterprising accomplishments as a Visionary for our American Culture and America’s First Art Dealer.

Bibliography

Manuscript:

Boston Public Library, Thomas Appleton, The account Book, ms.

Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Haven-Appleton-Cutter Papers (1692-1972).

Printed works:

Adams, W. H., The Paris years of Thomas Jefferson. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997.

Appleton, William Sumner, A genealogy of the Appleton Family, Boston, T.R Marvin, 1873.

Argiero, Maria & Neri, Algerina, Bostoniani a Livorno: Il console Thomas Appleton e i suoi conterranei, Pisa, Plus-Piza University Press, 2012.

Desportes, Ulysses, “Giuseppe Ceracchi in America and his busts of George Washington” The Art Quarterly, XXVI/2 (Summer 1963), pp.141-78.

Fehl, Philipp “Thomas Appleton of Livorno and Canova’s Statue of George Washington” Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf, edited by Antje Kosegarten and Peter Tigler, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1968, pp. 523-552.

Fehl, Philipp “The Account Book of Thomas Appleton of Livorno: A Document in the History of America Art, 1802-1825” Winterthur Portfolio, 9 (1974), pp.123-151.

Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University 1636-1895, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1895.

Jefferson, Thomas, Papers of Thomas Jefferson: March-October, 1788, Vol. 13, Princeton, Princeton        University Press, 2018.

Records of the Church in Brattle Square, Boston with lists of communicants, baptisms, marriages, and funerals 1699-1872, Boston, The Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, 1902.

Reinhold, Meyer, Classica Americana. The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States, Detroit, Wayne State U.P., 1984.

Reports of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, containing Boston Births from A.D 1700 to A.D. 1800, Boston, Rockwell & Churchill, 1894.

Shipton, Clifford K, Bibliographical Sketches of those who attended Harvard College in the classes 1701-1712, in Sybley’s Harvard Graduates, Vol.V, Boston, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1932.

Shipton, Clifford K, Bibliographical Sketches of those who attended Harvard College in the classes 1746-1750, in Sybley’s Harvard Graduates, Vol.XII, Boston, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1962.

Tharp, Louise Hall, The Appletons of Beacon Hill, Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1973.

Watson, Marston, Royal families: Americans of royal and noble ancestry, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 2010.

Wilson, Douglas L. & Stanton, Lucia, Jefferson abroad, New York, Modern Library, 1999.