Photograph of Fire Screen by Natalie Bayard Brown (July 2016)
Title
Photograph of Fire Screen by Natalie Bayard Brown (July 2016)
Description
Firescreens such as this one can be adjusted to be level with a user’s head, shielding their face from the direct and uncomfortable heat of the flames. However, adjustable firescreens also could be rather elaborate examples of decorative art, featuring stylish embroidered panels. This one tells a story important to the Brown family.
The embroidery in this firescreen is a front view of Harbour Court, boyhood home of John Nicholas Brown II, stitched by his mother, Natalie Bayard Brown. Natalie Bayard Brown commissioned the Boston-based architect Ralph Adams Cram to build Harbour Court on an eight-acre plot of land in Newport a few years after the death of her husband. She and six-year old John moved from Providence into the thirty room French-style chateau in 1906.
From playing with toy boats on the estate’s private pond to receiving his first real sailing boat, a 15-foot sloop, at age 12, Harbour Court became central to John Nicholas Brown’s lifelong love of sailing and yachting. He later entered in yachting competitions boats that he, in a moment of lightheartedness, decided to name after Spanish dances—the Bolero and Volta among them. From 1951-1954, he served as the New York Yacht Club’s first non-New Yorker commodore. The Brown's Harbour Court home came in handy as the enthusiastic “commodore” hosted a series of New England-style clam bakes at the seaside estate.
After his marriage in 1930, John entrusted Harbour Court to his mother while he and Anne settled in at 357 Benefit in Providence. In 1987, eight years after John Nicholas Brown’s death, his children sold Harbour Court to John’s beloved New York Yacht Club. It seemed appropriate that a place so central to John’s favorite hobby in life would go on to foster others’ love of sailing and the sea after his death.
The embroidery in this firescreen is a front view of Harbour Court, boyhood home of John Nicholas Brown II, stitched by his mother, Natalie Bayard Brown. Natalie Bayard Brown commissioned the Boston-based architect Ralph Adams Cram to build Harbour Court on an eight-acre plot of land in Newport a few years after the death of her husband. She and six-year old John moved from Providence into the thirty room French-style chateau in 1906.
From playing with toy boats on the estate’s private pond to receiving his first real sailing boat, a 15-foot sloop, at age 12, Harbour Court became central to John Nicholas Brown’s lifelong love of sailing and yachting. He later entered in yachting competitions boats that he, in a moment of lightheartedness, decided to name after Spanish dances—the Bolero and Volta among them. From 1951-1954, he served as the New York Yacht Club’s first non-New Yorker commodore. The Brown's Harbour Court home came in handy as the enthusiastic “commodore” hosted a series of New England-style clam bakes at the seaside estate.
After his marriage in 1930, John entrusted Harbour Court to his mother while he and Anne settled in at 357 Benefit in Providence. In 1987, eight years after John Nicholas Brown’s death, his children sold Harbour Court to John’s beloved New York Yacht Club. It seemed appropriate that a place so central to John’s favorite hobby in life would go on to foster others’ love of sailing and the sea after his death.
Creator
Banks III, Jesse
Source
Digital copy created by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage
Date
2016-07-28
Contributor
Jennifer Shook
Rights
Rights Status Not Evaluated
Citation
Banks III, Jesse, “Photograph of Fire Screen by Natalie Bayard Brown (July 2016),” Digital Tours of The Nightingale-Brown House , accessed December 12, 2025, https://cds.library.brown.edu/NBHouse/items/show/70.