Description:
Scalloped-top stand with a single drawer in the table frame supported by four tapered legs, which survives with its original Spanish brown paint, which came from the Barnard family of Shelburne. The dealer may have bought this stand at the auction of Barnard family belongings in 1968, at the Francis Barnard barn in the Patten Hill district of Shelburne, Massachusetts. The property had been in the Barnard family since 1790 when Elisha Barnard (1763-1845), the son of John Barnard (1713-1785) and Ruth Catlin Barnard (1721/2-1785), originally of Deerfield, moved to Shelburne during the Revolution and built the house. The property descended through the family to their son, Elisha Barnard (1807-1886); then Francis Edward Barnard (1836-1889); to David Barnard (1874-1961); and then to Francis Barnard (1898-1988) who sold the property in 1968. The stand is important since it illustrates the long-term appeal of Baroque design and the retention of the scallop-top theme in the history of furniture design in western Massachusetts. The scallop top concept, 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 nineteenth century. This stand was made about the year 1800 or slightly later, based on its straight tapering legs and use of cut nails. The proper left front leg, and drawer front are cherry. The drawer sides are white pine.
Label Text:
The cabinetmaker who made this one-drawer stand combined a Baroque scalloped top with a Classical frame and tapered legs. The style of its legs and use of cut nails indicate a date of 1800 or later. This illustrates both the variety of forms that cabinetmakers embellished with scalloped tops and the longevity of the scallop-top tradition in western Massachusetts. Local cabinetmakers mixed styles to develop furniture that distinctly expressive of family and place to appeal to local consumers.
This stand was acquired from descendants of joiner Elisha Barnard (1763-1845) living in the Shelburne, Massachusetts house that Barnard built in 1790. Barnard may have made this stand for his own family’s use; his 1845 estate inventory listed joiner’s tools, a desk and bookcase and three “light stands,” one of which could have been this stand.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+95.001 |
