The William K. du Pont Collection: Important Americana from Rocky Hill

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 174. Very Fine and Rare William and Mary Line-and-Berry-Inlaid Walnut Two-Part Chest of Drawers, Delaware River Valley, possibly Philadelphia, Circa 1720.

Very Fine and Rare William and Mary Line-and-Berry-Inlaid Walnut Two-Part Chest of Drawers, Delaware River Valley, possibly Philadelphia, Circa 1720

Auction Closed

January 23, 10:36 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Very Fine and Rare William and Mary Line-and-Berry-Inlaid Walnut Two-Part Chest of Drawers

Delaware River Valley, possibly Philadelphia

Circa 1720

Upper portion of feet replaced.

Height 40 1/2 in. by Width 42 3/4 in. by Depth 23 3/4 in.

An early Byberry, Pennsylvania area family that relocated to New York State;
Bernard and S. Dean Levy Inc., New York.

Jack L. Lindsey, Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758, (Philadelphia, PA: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999), pp. 130, 142, no. 28, fig. 191;
Peter Kenny, "Ark of the Covenant: The Remarkable Inlaid Cedar Scrutoir from the Brinckerhoff Family of Newtown, Long Island," American Furniture 2014, ed. Luke Beckerdite, (Milwaukee, WI: Chipstone Foundation, 2014), pp. 19-20, figs. 24 and 25;
Jeanmarie Andrews. “Line and Berry Furniture.” Early American Life (May/June 2021): p. 31;
Christopher Storb, "Lines and Dots," In Proportion to the Trouble, October 25, 2021 [https://cstorb.com/2021/10/25/lines-and-dots/].

With its case elaborately ornamented with tulips, scrolling vines and berry cluster inlays, this chest is representative of the line-and-berry inlaid furniture made in Southeastern Pennsylvania during the early eighteenth century. It is made of black walnut with hard pine and Atlantic white cedar secondary woods.

Christopher Storb includes this chest in his recent article “Lines and Dots” and identifies it as part of a subset of line-and-berry furniture that may have been made in the Delaware River Valley and possibly Philadelphia rather than Chester County. The high chest in the du Pont Collection is also part of this group (lot 505). Both case pieces display secondary woods seen in documented Philadelphia furniture as well as four berry clusters and inlay designs made with numerous compass settings. See Christopher Storb, “Lines and Dots,” October 25, 2021 https://cstorb.com/2021/10/25/lines-and-dots/

This chest was included in the Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758 exhibition held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from October 10, 1999 – January 2, 2000 and illustrated in the accompanying catalogue. An early William and Mary walnut chest of similar form with a two-part divided case and four graduated drawers may represent the same shop tradition. It was also featured in the Worldly Goods exhibition.¹ It is similarly constructed with related molding profiles and case divisions as the present chest. Both were made to be easily transportable with an upper case that is held in place by a narrow upward-projecting tenon inset in the side frame of the lower case. The sides have panels-in-stiles set horizontally and positioned one over the other. The upper panels of the present chest have an applied stile which divides each into two rectangle panels. Reflecting the variations of regional craftsmanship of the period, this chest has ball feet while the other chest has brush feet and lacks line-and-berry inlay.

¹ Lindsey, Jack L. Worldly Goods: The Arts of Early Pennsylvania, 1680-1758 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1999): fig. 192, p. 130 and no. 27, p. 142.