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Six-board box. Red cedar. Dovetailed at side corners. Brass rococo escutcheon and bail pulls at sides. Ogee base molding. glued and nailed to the case. Rests on bracket feet.
chests (case furniture)
case furniture
red cedar (wood)
eastern white pine (wood)
Chippendale
Cedar
Chippendale
Box
Eastern white pines, red maples, and northern red oaks thrived in the forests of eighteenth-century New England. However, red cedar comprises five of the six boards that form this Boston box, produced about 1750-1770. The exoticism of red cedar, shipped from Bermuda to Boston in the eighteenth century, made it more prized than native wood, yet less expensive than mahogany. The box belonged to prominent Boston merchant Oliver Brewster (ca. 1757-1812), and likely carried small valuables. By the mid-eighteenth century, such small forms of case furniture grew outmoded in many urban centers. Nevertheless, the fashionable features of the box, including finely crafted dovetails and delicately carved feet, reveal how a craftsman modernized a traditional form.
Unknown
MA
8 5/16 x 23 1/2 x 11 1/2 (HxWxD) (inches)
1929.496
Massachusetts (United States)
Boston (Suffolk county, Massachusetts)
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