Tall chest

1820-1840

Measurements

50-1/2 in x 38-1/2 in x 20-7/8 in

Materials

Hard pine

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, gift of H. Rodney Sharp

Accession Number

1959.3721

Condition Notes

The drawer knobs are possible replacements, see "Comments" below.

Provenance

Ex coll. H. Rodney Sharp

Comments

This brightly painted chest, having two side-by-side drawer above three full-width graduated drawers, belongs to a long tradition of Pennsylvania-German furniture.  The case and drawer fronts are grain-painted in shades of red, the chest base of ogee-bracket feet with scrolled brackets is black, the engaged, narrow-ring-turned quarter-columns in the front corner are green, and the cornice molding is white, yellow, and green below a red top board.  According to a file memo from then-Winterthur furniture curator Robert F. Trent dated March 11, 1991, Pennsylvania-German scholars Mary Hammond Sullivan and the Rev. Frederick Weiser suggested that the chest was from the Reading, Pennsylvania, area based on the cornice moldings, especially the "rippled" band.  See also Henry M. Reed, Decorated Furniture of the Mahantongo Valley (Lewisburg, Pa.:  Center Gallery of Bucknell University, 1987), fig 16.

No locks were built into the bottom drawer and the upper left, although each has a lock escutcheon.