Chest of Drawers

Object Name:

Chest of Drawers

Object ID:

1972.038

Place of Origin:

Keene, NH

Date:

circa 1830

Description:

Chest of drawers, straight front. Empire style. Painted graining (to look like mahogany). Straight front main case with single layer tier above, the upper layer having three side-by-side drawers. Four full-width drawers in main case, the top one overhangs the bottom three. Upper drawer in main case supported at front corners by freestanding balluster turned colonnettes. Four ring and ball turned legs avobe short cylindrical feet. Scrolled crest at back, behind upper tier. Two brass rosette handles with pull rings on each drawer in main case; single handle of the same style on drawers in upper tier.

Material:

Pine
Oak
Basswood
Metal
Brass

Dimensions:

H-44.75 W-41.25 D-18.5 inches

Provenance:

Offered in 1966 by donor's mother, Margaret Pollard Smith, as a gift upon her death.
Chest of drawers used at Miss Fiske's (Catherine Fiske) Seminary in Keene, NH, about 1832. Documented by the booklet in a drawer "Catalogue of the Young Ladies Seminary in Keene, N.H. for the year ending October, 1830" (See 376.9778 Y41H c. 2). The bureau had been in Margaret Pollard Smith's Keene, NH, home while she was growing up.
Donor (Pollard Smith's son) adds: "the probability is that my grandmother, Mrs. Helen S. Pollard, who owned the Keene Antique Shop at 256 Washington St. for many years (until 1939) acquired it, but this is largely a guess on my part.".

Credit Line:

Gift of Harry J. Smith

People:

Smith, Margaret Pollard (c. 1879-1972), Pollard, Helen S. (c. 1856-after 1938), Fiske, Catherine (1784-1837)