Images(3)

Dressing Glass

Date1815-1830

Maker Charles N. Robinson

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

MediumMahogany, white pine, tulip poplar, lightwood inlay, glass, and brass

DimensionsOverall: 15 × 14 1/4 × 7in. (38.1 × 36.2 × 17.8cm)

Credit LineGift of Beatrix T. Rumford

Object number2020-50

DescriptionDressing glass with rectangular mahogany veneered base with single drawer with two brass knob pulls; front of box inlaid with light wood string around perimeter of front and drawer opening; dark (black) flattened ball feet; rectangular glass is supported by two slightly raked uprights and iron wing nuts into center of sides; looking glass frame has a single light wood string set about 1/3 in from the outer edge of frame; paper label of Charles N. Robinson adhered to looking glass backboard.
Label TextLabeled American furniture assists in attributions of other like objects to certain makers or regions. This dressing glass is labeled by a Philadelphia looking glass maker but is very similar to looking glasses labeled by other makers both in Philadelphia and New York. The simplicity of the design may have been attractive to the various makers, but these makers might also have been retailing the work of other unidentified workers. Future research might help scholars understand these relationships. Indeed, Norfolk dressing glasses of the period are even simpler forms than these and may have been made by various makers from Philadelphia or elsewhere who migrated to that southern port or by Norfolk makers who copied imports from those northern cities.
InscribedIndecipherable chalk inscription on back of drawer; pencil “4” inside bottom of base.
MarkingsLabel: CHARLES N. ROBINSON,/ CARVER AND GILDER/ Manufactures, and has constantly on hand, at his LOOKING-GLASS and/ PICTURE STORE, NO. [blank space] STREET,/ PHILADELPHIA:/ A GENERAL ASSORTENT OF/ Gilt Framed Looking-Glasses,/Mahogany do. do./ Toilet do. do./ Pocket do. do./ Miniature Frames,/ Portrait Frames,/ Girandoles,/ Brackets,/ bed and Window Cornices &c./ W… a Great variety of Profile Frames, WHOLESALE and RETAIL/ …Looking-Glasses, Needle Works, and Pictures, elegantly Framed./ …Old Looking-Glasses taken in Exchange, and New Quicksilvered”
ProvenancePurchased by Hazel Hyde Rumford (Mrs. Lewis Rumford) in Wilmington, DE ca. 1935.