Clothespress

Date1805 (dated)

Maker Robert McLaurine

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Powhatan County

MediumBlack walnut, white pine, and yellow pine.

DimensionsOH. 85 7/8"; OW. 43"; OD. 22"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1989-318

DescriptionAppearance: Upper case with complex cornice over two flat-panel doors concealing five sliding clothes trays; lower case with three graduated, cock-beaded, full-width drawers over four straight bracket feet.

Construction: The press was built in three sections. The removable cornice features a dovetailed frame with built-up moldings glued and nailed to the front and sides. This assembly rests in rabbets on the front and sides of the upper case and is secured by screws driven into the case through three large chamfered blocks glued to the front and side rails.

The upper case is dovetailed, and its doors are through-tenoned without pins. The interior trays are dovetailed as in drawer construction. Their beveled bottoms are set in grooves at the front and sides, flush-nailed at the rear, and reinforced with widely spaced beveled glue blocks. Ledger strips support the trays and are screwed to the case sides. The back is covered with horizontal tongue-and-groove boards that are beveled and set into grooves at the sides, nailed at the top and bottom, and covered with a red wash.

The lower case is dovetailed and has backboards like those on the upper section. Shallow yellow pine drawer blades are set in dadoes, faced with black walnut, and backed with nearly full-depth drawer runners set in the same dadoes. Each drawer stops against pairs of thin vertical stops nailed into the rear corners of the case. The base molding is run directly on the exposed edges of three-inch-deep black walnut strips glued and nailed to the bottom of the lower case along the front and sides. Two similar strips extend in along the rear edge about 7 1/2 inches from each side. The bracket feet are glued directly to these molded strips and backed with chamfered, square, vertical glue blocks and similar horizontal flanking blocks. The drawer construction follows that of the trays in the upper section. Cock beading that is beveled on its underside is sprig-nailed to the edges of each drawer front.

Materials: Black walnut case sides, doors, drawer fronts, cock beading, drawer blade facings, cornice molding, waist molding, base molding, and exposed parts of feet; random glue blocks and parts of clothing trays of white pine; all other components of yellow pine.
Label TextThe clothespress continued to be one of the most popular furniture forms for the storage of wearing apparel in post-Revolutionary Virginia, although in some instances the proportions underwent marked changes. While the combination of concealed trays above a bank of full-width exterior drawers was usually retained, the comparatively broad, Georgian format of late colonial presses gradually gave way to newer versions that were taller and narrower. At the same time, production of clothespresses, which earlier had been largely confined to coastal areas, expanded into the Piedmont and beyond. As the population of Virginia grew toward the west, migrating eastern householders carried with them their taste for the clothespress and other British furniture forms. Cabinet- and chair makers moving inland from coastal cities were well qualified to fulfill those needs.

This black walnut press is distinguished from most similar contemporary examples because the maker signed and dated it. Inscriptions on the top and bottom of the lower case record that Robert McLaurine (1783-ca. 1846) of Powhatan County in Virginia's central Piedmont completed the press on May 9, 1805. Court and other records reveal that McLaurine (also M'Laurine) was one of nine children born to a Powhatan County planter and his wife who had large land holdings and some mining interests. As eldest son, Robert McLaurine probably stood to inherit much of his father's land. That he instead chose a commercial trade is probably related to the fact that soil exhaustion was already hindering crop production in the Piedmont.

McLaurine was twenty-one years old when he inscribed this clothespress. Probably he had just completed his apprenticeship. The structural sophistication evident in McLaurine's work points toward training in an urban area rather than in rural Powhatan County. Richmond, about forty miles east of McLaurine's family home, supported a healthy cabinetmaking community in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and would have been a logical place for him to learn the cabinet trade. Samuel Swann, McLaurine's kinsman, a successful cabinetmaker and upholsterer, maintained a large shop in Richmond until his death in 1799. McLaurine may have completed part of his training there.

Signs of urban-influenced craftsmanship are numerous in the McLaurine press. For example, the cornice is glued and nailed to a dovetailed frame that can be lifted off the case for ease in moving. A standard British approach, the removable cornice was common in Virginia's urban centers but was rarely seen on rural work. McLaurine's doors were joined without the locking pins found on most rural pieces. Many urban artisans avoided such pins since their exposed end grain absorbed more stain and finish than surrounding areas, which resulted in prominent dark dots. The glue blocks throughout the case were finished with an extraordinary level of care. Most of the edges on these blocks were individually finished with a fine, straight chamfer designed to prevent splintering. Finally, the pine front rails on the clothing trays and the entire back of the case were coated with a transparent red wash. Intended to camouflage the raw appearance of unstained, unfinished, secondary woods, such coatings were characteristic of the best British furniture and were sometimes employed in Norfolk and other coastal Virginia cities, but were rarely used in the backcountry.

Despite its many eastern urban qualities, the Piedmont origin of the press is indicated by several structural and design details. Most obvious is the monolithic stance created by the absence of an architectural setback between the upper and lower cases. McLaurine was not unaware of proportional relationships, but his approach does not appear to be grounded in conventional classical traditions. Rural production is also suggested by the conservative style of the press. With its neat and plain exterior, straight bracket feet, and bail and rosette brasses, it resembles furniture made twenty years earlier. Only the tall, narrow format reveals its early nineteenth-century date. The internal framing of the lower case also follows that of most inland Virginia furniture. Instead of the full or partial dustboards used in the east, the drawers of McLaurine's press rest on a three-sided mortised-and-tenoned frame consisting of a drawer blade and two shallow runners, all set into dadoes in the case sides.

Little is known about McLaurine's business in Powhatan County except that it apparently was short lived. Within five years of completing this press, McLaurine moved to Tennessee. In June 1810, he announced the formation of a cabinetmaking partnership in the growing city of Nashville, offering to provide customers with furniture "of the newest fashions." His associate was cabinetmaker Benedict Thomas, who had trained in Lexington, Kentucky, another developing backcountry center. McLaurine and Thomas's partnership dissolved within a few weeks. McLaurine eventually moved to rural Giles County on the Alabama border, where a number of his siblings and other relatives had also located. He may have been one of the three unnamed cabinetmakers listed there in the United States manufacturing census of 1820. No other examples of McLaurine's work have been recorded.

Inscribed"RDT" is penciled and "75" is crayoned in a modern hand on the top of the upper case. "Bottom" and another illegible word are penciled in an early hand inside the bottom of the upper case. "Powhatan" is chalked in an early hand, "12" and other numbers are penciled in an early hand, and "75" is crayoned in a modern hand on the top of the lower case. "Robt McLaurine / May the 9 1805" is penciled in an early hand on the bottom of the lower case.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe press was purchased from the Richmond, Va., antiques firm of Priddy & Beckerdite in 1989. The dealers had acquired it from Bradley's Antiques of Richmond, who had bought it at an estate sale in Ashland, Va. No prior history is known.