Description:
Chest-on-chest attributed to Moses Hazen (1776-1837) of Weare, New Hampshire. The upper section has a molded, broken scroll pediment terminating in carved rosettes, with three plain flame finials surmounting fluted plinths above a molded arched tympanum. The upper chest has a top long drawer made to simulate three short drawers across, with a carved fan within a fan design on the center section, over three graduated long drawers. The lower chest has mid-molding over three graduated drawers: the top long drawer is made to look like two drawers; the middle long drawer is as it appears; and the bottom long drawer is single, but made to simulate three short drawers across, with a carved fan on the center section. The two fans on upper and lower drawers are typical of New Hampshire design. The chest is supported on ogee feet. The chest was originally painted red, with one of the rosettes painted black as were the vertical drawer dividers and the shells. The only hand-wrought nails attach the rosettes to the pediment; the remaining nails are all cut, suggesting a ninteenth-century date of manufacture. The primary wood is all maple except for the right rear foot and the right hand plinth in the pediment, which are yellow birch. There is an area in the back of the pediment where the craftsman who carved the fan design practiced where no one could see; the carving is similar to the fan on the lower section.
Label Text:
The name Dunlap is synonymous with exuberant rural furniture made in the Scots-Irish towns of southern New Hampshire from the time of the Revolution to about 1830. Led by two brothers, Major John (1746-1792) and Lieutenant Samuel (1752-1830), the Dunlaps worked principally in Goffstown, Bedford, Henniker, Salisbury and Antrim in the Merrimack River valley. Numerous pieces of their furniture survive, suggesting that may people--their apprentices, journeymen, and competitors--made these objects characterized by elaborate cornices, imaginative carved shells and fan, and connected drawer facades that conceal bins. This chest-on-chest, which features a peacock-like fan, is attributed to Moses Hazen, Jr. (1776-1837) of Weare, next to Henniker, where Samuel Dunlap lived and may have trained him. The attribution is based on a chest-on-chest in a private collection that bears Hazen's name and the date "1809."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+P.279 |
