Chest with drawers Maker: Unknown

ca. 1781

American Decorative Arts

On view, 1st floor, American Decorative Arts before 1900

This comb-painted chest has been attributed to an unknown decorator who worked near the Berks-Montgomery County line. This painter made use of stencils in creating the outlines of the panels on this and another related chest, a rare instance of the use of this technique on a Pennsylvania German chest of the eighteenth century. The chest is inscribed Gorg Bossert, presumably the name of the original owner.

Medium

Yellow poplar

Dimensions

26 1/8 × 47 7/8 × 21 7/16 in. (66.4 × 121.6 × 54.5 cm)
other (Case): 45 7/8 × 20 1/4 in. (116.6 × 51.5 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1930.2245

Geography

Made in Berks County, Pennsylvania, or Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

Culture

American

Period

18th century

Classification

Furniture

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Owned originally by a man named George Bossert (or some variant spelling), whose identity is not known. The name and related variants are found in Berks and Montgomery counties, and "Bosserd" in Lancaster County. Acquired before 1930 by Francis P. Garvan, New York, to 1930; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 91, ill
  • Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988), 34, 81, 115–16, no. 45, pl. 4
  • Monroe H. Fabian, The Pennsylvania German Decorated Chest (New York: Main Street Press, 1978), 145, fig. 115
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

chests with drawers

Inscriptions

Painted on the front of the chest is "Gorg - 1781 - Bossert" On the underside of the lid, strips of paper, including a newspaper printed in English and another paper containing repeated phrases written in ink in German, are pasted to cover a gap created by shrinkage of the top. Some illegible writing in chalk appears on the underside of the top. The modern "822 / 7-6" is written on the back, and an old shipping tag addressed to Francis P. Garvan is nailed to the underside of the bottom.\r\n

Technical metadata and APIs

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