The 18th-century cabinetmaker Nathaniel Gould left inkblots in his battered gray notebooks as he recorded the luxurious mahogany output of his workshop in Salem, Mass. His listings of clients and fees, found seven years ago in forgotten boxes at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, have enabled researchers to attribute his mostly unsigned antiques. Next weekend, about 20 of these pieces will go on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem in the exhibition “In Plain Sight: Discovering the Furniture of Nathaniel Gould.”

The show’s catalog blends tragic family lore with statistics. Gould’s clients lost their furniture in fires, their fortunes in bankruptcies and war and their family members in shipwrecks. Coffins for children were among his workshop’s frequent commissions.