Dark Green and Red Painted and Carved Poplar Candle Box, Guilford, New Haven County, Connecticut, circa 1750

Lillian Blankley Cogan, Farmington, Connecticut
Christie's New York, "The Collection of the late Lillian Blankley Cogan," September 7, 1992, lot 123
David A. Schorsch, New York, New York

"Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 1967
"Masterpieces of American Folk Art," Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, New Jersey, 1975

Monmouth Museum. Masterpieces of American Folk Art. Lincroft, New Jersey: Monmouth Museum in association with Monmouth County Historical Association, 1975, n.p.
Wadsworth Atheneum. Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1967, p. 5
American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 108, fig. 71

Very good condition, with no apparent in-paint.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Of all the basic household equipment used from the 17th through the 19th century, wooden boxes of one sort or another were the most useful and diverse." So wrote Nina Fletcher Little in Country Arts in Early American Homes (1975).¹ The decoration on boxes often reflected broader trends and employed the same motifs and techniques that were applied to more significant furnishings. This small Connecticut utility box was probably made to hold candles and is of simple construction, with a faceted slide top. What distinguishes the box is the remarkable state of preservation of its carved and painted surface. Early Connecticut furniture was strongly influenced by English taste, and heavily carved furniture forms showed the same tulips, sunflowers, carnations, and roses that were popular in England earlier in the century. By the turn of the 18th century, much of the earlier carved decoration was being interpreted in paint, and this box, with its bright salmon-colored flowers, hints at that transition. The boldly carved and painted layered rosettes relate strongly to surface carving on chests from the Connecticut River Valley, most notably the Sunflower group attributed to Peter Blin in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and the Hadley chests of Massachusetts.² Similar rosettes are also found on carved gravestones throughout New England.³-S.C.H.

¹ Nina Fletcher Little, Country Arts in Early American Homes (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975), p. 136.
² It is thought that the "sunflowers" are actually marigolds, the traditional flower of the Huguenots; see Philip Zea, "Furniture," in Wadsworth Atheneum. The Great River: Art & Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820 (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985), p. 187.
³ Francis Y. Duval and Ivan B. Rigby. Early American Gravestone Art in Photographs (New York: Dover Publications, 1978).