On View
Not on viewBoard Chests
Date1690 - 1720
Terms
- Board Chests
- Oak
- Pine
- Marlborough
Dimensions83.76 × 119.29 × 50.76 cm (33 × 46 15/16 × 20 in.)
MarkingsBranded initials "SB" are present on the underside of the lid. Branded initials "BB" and a black inscription "1719" are on the exterior of the chest compartment backboard. The painted date may postdate the chest's manufacture but appears to have substantial age.
Credit LineAnonymous Gift; Gift of the Cummings Davis Society (1995)
Object number1995.5
DescriptionPine, oak. The case is made of four boards. The front corners of the case are mitered, while the sides overlap the rear with a butt joint. The bottom of the chest compartment is nailed underneath and extends beyond the compartment on the front and sides. The one-board lid is attached with snipebill hinges. The oak cleats have an arc-shaped cutout at both ends and are molded on their bottom edges with a fillet and cyma recta. This same molding, augmented with a fillet, is used on the applied moldings of the facade and sides. Posts that are planed smooth on all four sides are nailed inside the four corners of the chest compartment and extend below it to form pseudo-posts or feet. The portion of the posts insides the chest compartment tapers from three inches in width at the bottom to one-and-three-quarters inches in width at the top. Two boards are nailed under the bottom between each pair of posts at the sides. These boards brace the legs and act as drawer guides. Molded casings are nailed to the front and sides of the legs. An additional molded strip is nailed on the front posts under the casing to form a false molded shoulder in the manner of an architectural post head. The drawer runs on its bottom on runners that are notched around and nailed to the legs. The drawer front and rear are rabbeted to accept the sides, and the drawer is held together by nails driven in from the front and rear. The front nailing is covered by the applied moldings. The drawer bottom fits inside the front, sides and rear and is nailed in place from all four sides. The presentation surfaces of the chest are covered by a thin layer of vermilion paint, but remains of black squiggle paint are visible through the vermilion layer. Branded initials "SB" are present on the underside of the lid. Branded initials "BB" and a black painted inscription "1719" are on the exterior of the chest compartment backboard. The painted date may postdate the chest's manufacture but appears to have substantial age. The lock dates from the late eighteenth century. A subsidiary backboard is nailed across the rear of the rear legs behind the drawer. This board is a weathered piece of barn siding. It is not clear whether this is an addition or an old replacement, but clearly it is not original.
The group to which this chest belongs is recognized as a Middlesex County shop tradition. The earliest notice of an example from this group is a photographic in Wallace Nutting's Furniture Treasury (1928); Nutting's remark that "Mold Not at [i.e. absent from] Base Suggests Building from Memory" in turn indicates that Nutting had not seen the chest itself but was working from a photograph. In other words, Butting was not aware of the unusual construction of the chest. The second notice of the group was a "Riddle & Replies" column in Antiques dating from 1938, wherein a painted chest then in the collection of the Historical Museum of Southbridge, Massachusetts--the parent organization of Old Sturbridge Village--was described in some detail. The unusual construction, a board case with internal posts nailed in the interior corners and extending below the case to serve as feet, was described, but the bulk of the column dilated upon the elaborate painted decoration. An anonymous collector was paraphrased in the column who drew parallels between the painted decoration and that of chests from the upper Connecticut River Valley. This mistaken impression has been repeated in a more recent discussion. In fact, the immediate antecedent for the decoration is a large group of painted chests, chests of drawers, chamber tables, and joined tables that probably originated in Boston and are related to Boston chairs in the Cromwellian style.
Setting aside the painted decoration of several later chests from the group--notably examples at Old Sturbridge Village, Rhode Island School of Design, and an altered example at the Concord Museum--these chests represent something of a quandary because of the hybrid construction. Numerous early board chests are known with applied decoration to give them the appearance of joined chests, but board chests with internal posts that extend below the chest compartment to form posts or feet are virtually unheard of. So rare is this construction that its authenticity has been questioned. That this is a period construction is, however, beyond question; not only do numerous examples survive, but the shop tradition existed long enough to undergo a transition from an applied moldings phase to a painted decoration phase.
The present example has an original squiggle-painted decoration overlaid by a coat of red paint. Such squiggle paint, intended to suggest an exotic hardwood veneer, is found on the antecedent group of Boston case pieces and table alluded to above and is also seen in architectural woodwork. It does not appear to have persisted much beyond 1710, and careful examination does not confirm that the squiggle painting and the painted inscription "1719" are coeval.
The group to which this chest belongs is recognized as a Middlesex County shop tradition. The earliest notice of an example from this group is a photographic in Wallace Nutting's Furniture Treasury (1928); Nutting's remark that "Mold Not at [i.e. absent from] Base Suggests Building from Memory" in turn indicates that Nutting had not seen the chest itself but was working from a photograph. In other words, Butting was not aware of the unusual construction of the chest. The second notice of the group was a "Riddle & Replies" column in Antiques dating from 1938, wherein a painted chest then in the collection of the Historical Museum of Southbridge, Massachusetts--the parent organization of Old Sturbridge Village--was described in some detail. The unusual construction, a board case with internal posts nailed in the interior corners and extending below the case to serve as feet, was described, but the bulk of the column dilated upon the elaborate painted decoration. An anonymous collector was paraphrased in the column who drew parallels between the painted decoration and that of chests from the upper Connecticut River Valley. This mistaken impression has been repeated in a more recent discussion. In fact, the immediate antecedent for the decoration is a large group of painted chests, chests of drawers, chamber tables, and joined tables that probably originated in Boston and are related to Boston chairs in the Cromwellian style.
Setting aside the painted decoration of several later chests from the group--notably examples at Old Sturbridge Village, Rhode Island School of Design, and an altered example at the Concord Museum--these chests represent something of a quandary because of the hybrid construction. Numerous early board chests are known with applied decoration to give them the appearance of joined chests, but board chests with internal posts that extend below the chest compartment to form posts or feet are virtually unheard of. So rare is this construction that its authenticity has been questioned. That this is a period construction is, however, beyond question; not only do numerous examples survive, but the shop tradition existed long enough to undergo a transition from an applied moldings phase to a painted decoration phase.
The present example has an original squiggle-painted decoration overlaid by a coat of red paint. Such squiggle paint, intended to suggest an exotic hardwood veneer, is found on the antecedent group of Boston case pieces and table alluded to above and is also seen in architectural woodwork. It does not appear to have persisted much beyond 1710, and careful examination does not confirm that the squiggle painting and the painted inscription "1719" are coeval.
Collections
- Furniture
