Description:
Box with carved sweeping asymmetrical leaves attached to shaped, convex stems, and accented with alternating gouges and gouge strikes interspersed with punches. Sometimes called bible boxes, and earlier, flower’d boxes, if carved with floral designs, boxes such as this example were used to store a wide variety of small possessions, such as books, papers, candles, thread, yarn, medicines, saved seeds for the kitchen garden, and other valuables. A shield-shaped reserve was carved at the center top edge of this example to accommodate a lock (never installed). Simply constructed, the sides are nailed together and the bottom is nailed to the sides; the lid is attached with iron loops (“snipe-bill hinges”) driven through the lid and back and nailed flat. The carved decoration, once painted in shades of red and black, was popular on furniture made between the 1660s and 1740s in towns along the Connecticut River, from Enfield, Connecticut, to Northfield, Massachusetts. Although its history of ownership is unknown, the style of carving, featuring rounded leaf shapes, extra gouges on the leaves and lines of punched dots accentuating sections of scrolls and stems, relates to other examples by joiners working in or near the region’s largest and earliest town, Springfield. Making the bevel with a rasp could explain the pock marks on the bottom board. The center of the bottom drawer is Southern yellow pine, and the backboard is probably white oak.
Label Text:
Box
Hampshire County (probably Springfield), Massachusetts, 1700-1725
Oak, yellow pine
h. 9 ¼ in., w. 25 ½ in., d. 16 in.
HD 2103
Known as “bible boxes” today and simply “boxes” in earlier times (sometimes “flower’d boxes” if carved with floral designs) boxes such as this example were used to store a wide variety of small possessions, such as books, papers, candles, thread, yarn, medicines, saved seeds for the kitchen garden, and other valuables. A shield-shaped reserve was carved at the center top edge of this example to accommodate a lock (never installed).
Simply constructed, the sides are nailed together and the bottom is nailed to the sides; the lid is attached with iron loops (“snipe-bill hinges”) driven through the lid and back and nailed flat. The carved decoration, once painted in shades of red and black, features a tulip and leaf, a motif popular on furniture made between the 1660s and 1740s in towns along the Connecticut River, from Enfield, Connecticut to Northfield, Massachusetts. Although its history of ownership is unknown, the style of carving, featuring rounded leaf shapes, extra gouges on the leaves and lines of punched dots accentuating sections of scrolls and stems, relates to other examples by joiners working in or near the region’s largest and earliest town, Springfield.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2103 |
