Antique & Vintage Postcards

Candlelight-warm mahogany glows against ivory walls in this chrome-era postcard of the South Parlor of the Stebbins House in Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts — a room that reads like a catalogue of Federal-period American craftsmanship at its finest. A round tea table set with pink-and-white porcelain anchors the foreground, surrounded by shield-back Hepplewhite chairs whose upholstery still gleams. Behind them, a serpentine-front secretary-bookcase with Gothic tracery glazing rises nearly to the cornice, flanked by draped windows with gilded swag valances. A demi-lune card table and a pair of wall sconces complete the ensemble, all documented in a photograph by Samuel Chamberlain — the beloved chronicler of New England's architectural heritage — and published by Walter H. Miller & Co. of Williamsburg under number 51710. The Stebbins House, built in 1799 for Elihu Stebbins, was one of the grandest Federal homes on Deerfield's famous "The Street."