Images(37)

The North Carolina Room

Date1836

Artist/Maker Isaac M. Scott

OriginAmerica, North Carolina, Scotland County

MediumPainted yellow pine

DimensionsThe panelling is made of 135 strips of pine, each one approximately 6" wide. Unspecified number of dado panelling, window trim, and a door or two. The swag decoration is approx., 24" deep, and the view of N.Y. is approx., 84" long. The dimension of the original room was 16 feet square and 9 or 9 1/2-feet high. (source is a letter to Mr. Cogar from EGH on December 18, 1939.)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1956.101.1

DescriptionPainted panelled room with four windows and four doors, and mantel piece. Includes an overmantel view of what is perhaps the "Great Fire of December 16 and 17, 1835 of New York". Shows waterfront view. Graining simulating rosewood or mahogany, oak, and bird's-eye maple decorates the wainscoting. Floral swags painted below cornice around room, caught in bowknots; this frieze is painted in shades of yellow, red, blue, grey and black and is superimposed upon plain sheathed walls composed of separate pine boards approximately 6-inches in width, tongued and grooved to present a flat surface The boarding is painted in what was originally a soft gray or ochre (now appears greenish).
ProvenanceFrom a house thought to have been built by Alexander Shaw in Wagram, Scotland County, North Carolina. The house was demolished about 1950. The house descended in the family of Danny Hugh Shaw. When Mr. Shaw married in 1911, he built the present house on the property and let his negro cook use the old house. A Mr. E. M. Reinecke purchased the woodwork from the African American cook in 1930. It then passed to a decorator friend of Mr. Reinecke's, who sold the woodwork to Mrs. Kavanaugh, who in turn sold it to Joe Kindig.