Description:
Chest of drawers with a slightly scalloped top, which is signed "Jo Wadleigh" on the back. The scallop top concept, which began 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. The chest, found in or near Deerfield, was sold in an auction of the belongings of Susan B. Hawks (1883-1946) in the 1946. Ms. Hawks was a Sheldon descendent who last owned the Sheldon House before it was bought by Henry N. Flynt (1893-1970) in 1946. She had an antiques business in the house where she sold many locally-obtained pieces, so the chest could have been a family piece or one purchased from a local family. Originally mahoganized, the chest has a pull-out shelf directly beneath the top; over four graduated, lipped drawers with the original brass bail handles and keyholes; over a molded base rail and four small cabriole legs terminating in pad feet which are attached directly to the base. This design of the sliding shelf and drawers is similar to Pl. 75, "Dressing Drawers," in George Hepplewhite's "The Cabinet-Maker & Upholsterer's Guide," 3rd. Edition, published in London in 1794, and available at the bookstore of Hudson & Goodwin in Hartford, Connecticut, by 1799. The discovery of the Lemuel Adams ledger in 2016 reveals that Hepplewhite was available in Hartford as early as June 1793.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+0172 |
