Description:
Oak and pine panel-and-frame joined chest missing its bottom drawer. It has integral ogee and triple-groove scratch moldings related to other chests with histories from the shop of Northampton joiner Aaron Cook (1614-1690). Jonathan Morton (1684-1776) and Sarah Smith Morton (1688-1760) of Hatfield probably received this chest from Sarah’s mother, Hannah Hitchcock (1645-1733), for whom it may have been made when Hannah married Chileab Smith (1636-1731) in 1661. In 1688, Hannah’s sister-in-law (Sarah’s aunt) Rebecca Foote Cook (1635-1701), widow of Chileab’s brother Philip Smith (1632-1685), married Aaron Cook as his fourth wife. The decoration of this chest with drawer offered an aesthetic alternative to the tulip-and-leaf relief-carved ornament that predominated in the Connecticut River Valley. Here, the maker created a checkerboard effect of alternating gouged voids on the top rail and muntins and “nulling” (a series of gouged arcades) in the top side rails; he embellished the stiles with geometric cutouts that probably held wooden insets of contrasting color (such as cedar), and he decorated the front lower rails, sides and feet with both applied and integral ogee and grooved moldings. The chest floor is constructed in a manner atypical for the region, consisting of wedge-shaped boards with their narrow edges fitted into grooves cut in the thick edges of the adjacent boards and both edges of a shallow V-shaped central board. All of the boards are fitted into a groove in the front rail and butted and nailed to the rear rail. The end boards are coped to fit around the stiles and side panels. The proper right rear foot, the lowest strip on the fron under the inset panel, and the inset panels on the front are white oak, the top is Southern yellow pine, and the inset side panels are white pine.
Label Text:
The decoration of this chest with drawer offered an aesthetic alternative to the tulip-and-leaf relief-carved ornament that predominated in the Connecticut River Valley. Here, the maker created a checkerboard effect of alternating gouged voids on the top rail and muntins and “nulling” (a series of gouged arcades) in the top side rails; he embellished the stiles with geometric cutouts that probably held wooden insets of contrasting color (such as cedar), and he decorated the front lower rails, sides and feet with both applied and integral ogee and grooved moldings.
The chest floor is constructed in a manner atypical for the region, consisting of wedge-shaped boards with their narrow edges fitted into grooves cut in the thick edges of the adjacent boards and both edges of a shallow V-shaped central board. All of the boards are fitted into a groove in the front rail and butted and nailed to the rear rail. The end boards are coped to fit around the stiles and side panels.
Original owners:
Jonathan Morton (1684-1776) and Sarah Smith Morton (1688-1760) of Hatfield probably received this chest from Sarah’s mother, Hannah Hitchcock (1645-1733), for whom it may have been made when Hannah married Chileab Smith (1635-1731) in 1661. In 1688, Hannah’s sister-in-law (Sarah’s aunt) Rebecca Foote Cook (1635-1701; widow of Chileab’s brother, Philip Smith (1632-1685), married Northampton joiner Aaron Cook (1614-1690) as his fourth wife. The ogee and triple-groove moldings on this chest relate to those on other chests with histories that point to Aaron Cook’s shop.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2003.9 |
