Conserving an Isaac Vose & Son couch

One of Historic New England’s new online visitor experiences features Otis House in Boston

The new web app includes information on Boston furniture, behind-the scenes photographs, a 360° tour, stories of the many people who have called Otis House home, and much more.

Hiding in Plain Sight

You can start exploring by watching a video about Historic New England’s conservation treatment of this fabulous couch. See how scholarship combined with careful detective work from curators, scholars, and conservators helped to transform a lilac covered couch into this spectacular example of fine neoclassical Boston furniture. Find the video under the Boston Furniture section.

More about Isaac Vose furniture

• This couch was one of the pieces made by Isaac Vose & Son for the city of Boston to furnish General Lafayette’s lodgings when he made a brief visit in 1824.
• It was in the 2018 Massachusetts Historical Society exhibition, Entrepreneurship & Classical Design in Boston’s South End: The Furniture of Isaac Vose & Thomas Seymour, 1815 to 1825.
• The couch graces the cover of Historic New England’s twenty-fifth annual Book Prize winner, Rather Elegant Than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose by Robert D. Mussey Jr. and Clark Pearce.
• Learn more about the “discovery” of the piece in the “Preserved Seating” article in the Winter 2019 issue of Historic New England.

There is more to explore

The Otis House web app is one of Historic New England’s new online visitor experiences. With new research and never-before-seen videos and photographs, these buildings, landscapes, objects, and stories are more accessible than ever before.

Funding was provided by

This project was funded through the NEH CARES Act economic stabilization program. These grants support essential operations at more than three hundred cultural institutions across the country. The NEH was created in 1965 as an independent federal agency. It supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation. Additional information about the NEH and its grant programs is available at neh.gov.