Cupboard

BFA Number

DAPC_1976-0041

Date

1638-1683

Current Owner

Concord Museum
More details

Details

Description

Seventeenth-century press cupboard with three sections.

Canted molding is overhanging, with dentil moldings and applied egg-shaped bosses. The middle section is recessed from top and bottom, with large turned columns. Between the columns are two doors with knobs, applied moldings and egg-shaped bosses. The central section features additional egg-shaped bosses and half-turned columns flanking rectangular paneling. The lower section has two drawers with applied egg shapes and knobs above a central door with moldings and egg-shaped bosses. On either side of the central door are two additional doors with applied paneling. The bottom is molded. The four feet are stump. The drawers are side-hung on slides nailed to the interior of the carcass. A large, chiseled-in dovetail is let into the drawer front and secured to it by a single, counter-sunk, rose-headed nail. Next to the dovetail is a slot, which receives one of the chamfered edges of the bottom. The drawer bottom is nearly one and a quarter inches thick.

Four of bosses in the top section, two drawer knobs, and moldings around the drawer panels are replacements. Two missing dentils on the cornice have not been restored. Until 1930, a coat of red paint and a second coat of black paint remained on the cupboard, but both coats were removed that year. Photos published online by the Concord Museum show that the columns were inverted sometime between 1974 and 2017.

Object use

Case furniture

Object type

Cupboard

Maker

Taylor, John, joiner, about 1610-1683, active 1638-1678

Basis of maker

Attributed to maker by Robert Trent in his master's thesis, "The Joiners and Joinery of Middlesex County, Massachusetts," pp. 90-2, 1975. John Taylor was one of three Harvard College master joiners, a group which produced furniture exhibiting a heavy Boston influence. Taylor came to Cambridge, MA by 1638 and was made a freeman by 1651. He was a Harvard College Butler and Joiner active between 1638 and 1678. He helped to build the college buildings in the 1630s and 1640s and was the founder of the Cambridge School for Joiners. Harvard became a source of patronage for local artisans and Taylor enjoyed the patronage of the more substantial citizens of Cambridge. Taylor founded the Cambridge school for joiners and educated five or six apprentices in his style. He probably made most of the important furniture in the town.

Place of origin

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Basis of origin

John Taylor founded the Cambridge school of joiners and was active in Cambridge between 1638 and 1677. Taylor was given the position of Harvard College Joiner. The Harvard College Joiners were a significant group of furniture makers active in Cambridge from 1638 until 1752. The cupboard is a composite of interregional influences, particularly Boston.

Date

1638-1683

Basis of date

Date attribution provided by Robert Trent in his Master's thesis, 1975. The date range is primarily based on known working dates of John Taylor, 1638-1677 and the Harvard College Joiners, 1638-1752, as well as characteristics of design and construction. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, this style of cupboard was considered old fashioned. This cupboard is believed to have been owned by Gregory Stone (1580-1672), a prominent figure living in Cambridge while Taylor was a highly famed furniture maker servicing the high-end clientele of Cambridge.

Style

Seventeenth-Century

Materials

White pine; Red oak; Maple

Attributes & techniques

Knobs; Carving; Moldings; Turning

Dimensions

Height 51.63 in. (131.1 cm), Width 45 in. (114.3 cm), Depth 19.5 in. (49.5 cm)

Associated objects

DAPC number 1976-0040 was erroneously assigned to this piece.

History of ownership

In the 1850s, purchased from John Stone, direct descendant of Gregory Stone (1590-1672), a deacon of the Cambridge Church and a well-to-do farmer with a considerable estate, by Cummings E. Davis, a well-known antiquarian who collection later became the nucleus of the Concord Antiquarian Society’s holdings. Stone's inventory of 13 December 1672 contains "a Winescott cubbard," valued at 11 shillings.

Bibliography

Article: Nancy Dodge Hartford, “The Concord Antiquarian Society and its museum,” Antiques 106, no. 6 (December 1974): 1018, fig. 3.

Collection catalog: George Tolman, ed., "Catalogue of a Portion of the Collection of The Concord Antiquarian Society." (Concord, MA: The Society, 1911).

Collection catalog: David Wood, ed., "The Concord Museum: Decorative Arts from a New England Collection" (Concord, MA: The Concord Museum, 1996), 1-2.

Online resource: The Concord Museum, http://www.concordcollection.org/ (accessed June 23, 2017), F0113.

Thesis: Robert F. Trent, “The Joiners and Joinery of Middlesex County Massachusetts” (M.A. Thesis: University of Delaware, 1975): 89-96.

Subject

Cupboards

Context

This press cupboard has been associated with John Taylor, the first of three successive Harvard College Joiners active from 1638 until 1677. The Concord Antiquarian Society (now the Concord Museum) attributes the object broadly to the Harvard Joiners College, but furniture historian Robert Trent specifically attributes the object to John Taylor based on history of ownership, characteristics of style, and elements of construction. If the cupboard was owned by John Stone, descendent of Gregory Stone, as it is believed, then it was probably made by Taylor due to prestige and that he serviced substantial citizens of Cambridge. An inventory of the Stone family neither sufficiently validates nor disproves the tradition of ownership. Although characteristics of design relate the object to others produced by American furniture schools, the combination of design techniques and Boston influences explicitly tie this object to the Cambridge school. Trent studied other objects in various collections that appear to be related. Ornamentation, such as the boss-and-satellite embellishments, and construction details demonstrate the Boston influence. Several reasons for this are put forth by Trent in his thesis. Taylor may have apprenticed in Boston or London, or he directly took elements from Boston made furniture. It is also possible that Boston style components were purchased from local tradesman and noted Cambridge turner, John Grove (active 1658-1704) or that John Palfey (working 1664-1689), who succeeded Taylor as the Harvard College Joiner, integrated the Boston style into the Cambridge method of furniture making.

Current owner

Concord Museum

Credit

Gift of Cummings E. Davis (1886)

Owner's accession number

F0113

Rights

Object owned by the Concord Museum, http://www.concordmuseum.org/.

Metadata and images digitized from the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection of the Winterthur Library. For reproduction requests or more information, contact DAPC at reference@winterthur.org.

Source

Decorative Arts Photographic Collection

Date digitized

2018-07-20

Date modified

2018-07-20

All materials are copyrighted by Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library or by participating institutions.

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