Chest with Drawers

Details

Descriptive Terms

blanket chests
case furniture
maple (wood)
painting (coating)
Norway spruce (wood)
maple (wood)
Pine
Maple
Painted
CHEST, BLANKET

Label

This chest, made around 1730-1750, displays up-to-date construction techniques, while elements such as the ball feet are more archaic. The chest's sides are attached to the bottom by dovetails, replacing the older joinery technique which depended on the use of mortises and tenons. The three drawers in the lower section of the chest also feature dovetails. The handles on the drawers, commonly referred to as “brasses,” were imported from England. Few brass foundries existed in the colonies. The three rows of brasses above the drawers offer the illusion of three more drawers and mimic the more fashionable chests of drawers of the period. Although a twentieth-century coat of red paint now covers the surface of this coastal Massachusetts chest, the original paint beneath that layer was also red, a favorite color for painted furniture and woodwork in New England in the eighteenth century.

Maker

Unknown

Dimensions

41 3/4 x 36 x 18 1/8 (HxWxD) (inches)

Accession Number

1956.135

Reference Notes

Jobe, Brock and Myrna Kaye. New England Furniture: The Colonial Era. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984.

Places

Massachusetts (United States)