Graduated Stacks of Painted Shaker Oval Storage Boxes – SOLD
Various communities | c. 1830-1880
Maple, pine, cedar, hickory or ash, and copper
L: 38 ½” h. x 15” w. x 11” d
R: 38” h. x 12 ½” w. x 9” d.
Provenance: Dr. Marvin and Natalie Gliedman, Manhattan Beach, NY
Exhibited/Illustrated: Shaker Design, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1986)
These monumental stacks of Shaker Oval Storage Boxes were displayed as you see here, original and unrestored, in the exhibition, Shaker Design, on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), October 4, 1986 – January 4, 1987. Curator June Sprigg researched the assembly:
“The boxes in these two stacks were collected in New England. The yellow box in the left stack was acquired from Miriam Wall (1896-1977) of Canterbury, New Hampshire. All but one are ‘right-handed’—that is, the swallowtails or fingers point to the right. The maker simply fitted the bottom into the opposite end of the ‘left-handed’ box. The small mustard-yellow box in the right stack has a cedar bottom and lid; the larger teal-blue box has sides of hickory or ash instead of maple. Several boxes have paint or stain on the bottom, an unusual finishing touch.
Inscriptions on several of the boxes identify worldly owners and one Shaker. A yellow box in the center of the right stack is marked with the name of Susan E. Hall (1834-1911), Deaconess at Canterbury, New Hampshire, and later Eldress in the New Hampshire Ministry. Other markings designate use. The smaller, bittersweet-orange box in the right stack, marked Elizabeth | different thread, contains a few strands of purple thread. CANELLA ALBA PULVERIZED, printed on a paper label glued to the end of the teal-blue box, suggests use in a Shaker physician’s shop, as does Mead[ow]. Sweet, inscribed on the bottom box on the right.”
June Sprigg, Shaker Design, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art (1986), p. 98.
This piece has been SOLD.
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