Description:
Scalloped-top dressing table along with a high chest of drawers (94.001), which were both made for John (1738-1811) and Content Little Hastings (ca. 1740-1829) who were married in 1764. When John Hastings died in 1811, the appraisers listed "Case with drawers [$] 12. 1 dressing table [$] 4." A matching high chest of drawers and dressing table were often found en suite in prosperous households. Especially ostentatious, they were designed to store folded clothes, accessories, and cosmetics for both men and women. This furniture was usually juxtaposed to the best bedstead in the house, which in the Connecticut Valley might be found in either the best parlor or chamber until the end of the eighteenth century. This dressing table has the same appearance, materials, and construction techniques as the high chest; the repetitive use of brass hardware and S-curves convey the impression of style and expense. The two objects were definitely made in the same shop and were probably made en suite although they both descended in different branches of the Hastings family of Hatfield. The scallop top concept on the dressing table, which begain in Wethersfield, Connecticut in the 1750s, migrated up the Connecticut River Valley to the Northampton-Hatfield-Deerfield region of western Massachusetts where other variants in this style were made into the first years of the nineteenth century.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+62.038 |
