Images(4)

Blanket chest

Date1795-1807

Artist/Maker Johannes Spitler

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Shenandoah County

MediumAll components of yellow pine

DimensionsOH: 25" OW: 49 1/8" OD: 22 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1995-94

DescriptionAppearance: Six-board chest; the molded hinged lid painted with a central large stellar device flanked by two similar smaller stars; the front of the case decorated with a central panel painted with a pair of swan's-neck pediments possibly simulating the bonnet-section of a tall-case clock or flanked by red, white, and blue bars, the two flanking panels centering pinwheels surmounted by stylized fleurs-de-lis and quarter-fans above a row of diamonds and vertical bars; the sides decorated in blue with finger-dabbed circles; the molded base raised on straight bracket feet.

Construction: The one-piece lid is framed at either end by a molded batten secured with an exposed tongue-and-groove joint. The battens are also through-tenoned in two places and further secured with wooden pins. The front and rear moldings on the lid are flush-joined and secured with wooden pins. The lid itself is attached to the case with two large iron strap hinges screwed to the interior surfaces of the lid and backboard. The case is open-dovetailed, and the dovetail pins are wedged. The upper dovetail pin at each corner is penetrated from above with a wooden pin. The two-piece bottom board is pinned to the underside of the case and further secured with iron nails. The integral feet and base moldings are pinned to the lower edge of the chest and open-dovetailed to one another at the front corners. At the rear, the feet are pinned to a pair of diagonal brackets that are additionally nailed in place. Inside of the chest, the bottom and front boards of the till are conventionally set into dadoes, and the till lid rotates on round pintles that are set into the front and rear boards.
Label TextJohannes Spitler (1774-1837) was a furniture painter who worked in the Massanutten area of Shenandoah (now Page) County, Virginia, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The oldest of eight children born to Pennsylvania natives Jacob and Nancy Henry Spitler, Johannes married Susanna Buswell (1776-1834) in 1796. Little else is known about Spitler's life, but the distinctive paint decoration he applied to a group of chests and clock cases in the northern Valley of Virginia has brought Spitler considerable notoriety in the twentieth century. Although he signed or initialed only a few of his creations, a large number of pieces have been attributed to him through close comparison of the artisan's designs and techniques.

Situated between the western slope of Massanutten Mountain and the Shenandoah River, the Massanutten district saw its initial European settlement in the 1720s when a group of nine families from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, acquired lands there. Most of these men and women were first or second generation Swiss and German immigrants whose families had fled the Rhine Valley to escape religious and political persecution. As with many Germanic communities in western Virginia, the Massanutten settlement was isolated by design, largely because of the settlers' desire to retain some degree of cultural homogeneity. Their seclusion was facilitated by Massanutten Mountain, which separated them from the Great Wagon Road that ran down the valley. In this protected setting, artisans like Spitler were able to retain traditional craft ways without the altering presence of outside patrons and imported artifacts until the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Spitler created paint schemes that are striking for their brilliant coloration and sharply focused images. His technique was relatively consistent. The furniture was first primed with a coat of red lead paint over which the ornamental elements were laid on in lampblack, white lead, and more red lead. The final coating, a blue ground made from Prussian blue and white lead pigments, was painted around the decorative motifs. Spitler's palette appears all the more powerful because of the thick impasto he imparted to his work through the use of heavily saturated brushes. The effect was further accentuated by his utilization of drafting implements. Guided by stencils, compasses, and templates, Spitler incised deep outlines around each decorative element. This technique allowed for very clean and precise definition between the various paints.

Each of the three distinct styles in which Spitler painted is strongly linked to his Swiss- and German-American cultural heritage. For example, the use of colorful squares, circles, diamonds, diagonal bands, and compass-drawn flowers is reminiscent of the ornament on German-American ceramics, quilts, woven coverlets, and decorated texts, or fraktur (see fig. 107.1 in Hurst and Prown, SOUTHERN FURNITURE). Much of the furniture Spitler painted in this style is numbered and dated. For example, he finished chest "No: 48" in 1798, and clock "NOMBER 3" was painted in 1801 (Hurst and Prown, fig. 107.2). A comparison of Spitler's numbered and dated chests suggests that he decorated about twenty-five per year.

The second decorative style associated with Spitler, illustrated by another chest in the CWF collection (acc. no. 1990.2000.1), differs considerably from his abstract geometric mode and instead features motifs drawn from nature. While painted in the same red, black, white, and blue color scheme, furniture in this style is covered with stylized birds, hearts, vines, crescent moons, and compass-drawn flowers. More than stock Germanic decorative motifs, these naturalistic elements reflect the traditional world view of German-American society. One of the principal tenets of this belief system was a perception of the physical and spiritual worlds as an integrated whole comprised of countless interrelated and mutually supporting ideas, a view in which all things real and divine reflected the hand of God and were part of an irrefutable universal order.

Spitler's naturalistic motifs demonstrate this traditional devotion to family, farming, and God. Spitler lucidly depicted the themes of abundance, divine and romantic love, fecundity, and spiritual growth through the decorative elements he selected. The flowering heart represents the vessel from which life and plenty flow and epitomizes the benevolence of God's love. Similar themes are expressed through paired birds like those centered on the front of this chest. They may also allude to the human soul. The blooming flowers and growing vines bespeak the cycles of nature so important to an agrarian people and suggest the flowering and growth of the human spirit.

A generally unrecognized component of Spitler's naturalistic designs is his use of anthropomorphic figures, an approach with precedent in German-American artistic traditions. The front panel of chest 1990.2000.1 features two such characters. Standing on legs and featuring inverted, heart-shaped torsos and compass-drawn heads surmounted by horizontal crescent moons, these composite figures embody the German-American adherence to the Old World belief in the interconnectedness of human beings with the world around them. Anthropomorphic attributes also appear on another Spitler chest at MESDA (acc. 3806). Conventional analysis assumes that designs at either end of the front panel on this chest are stylized versions of an abstract flower motif Spitler used on many objects. However, they can also be read as rather graphic allusions to female anatomy and sexuality. This interpretation is bolstered by frequent associations of female sexual anatomy with flowers in Western art and literature and the bawdy character of many Swiss- and German-American cultural expressions.

Some of the decorative motifs used by Spitler and other German-American artisans certainly had lost much of their original symbolic importance by the early nineteenth century. Even so, the designs continued to serve as effective visual symbols for a traditional people who were struggling to come to terms with Enlightenment rationalism. Moreover, the fact that decorative references to abundance, love, and regeneration are commonly found on German-American chests is all the more significant because chests, perhaps more than any furniture form, signify continuity. Built to last, chests were typically filled with prized possessions and then passed from one generation to the next, often at the time of a child's marriage or a parent's death. That identically decorated pieces of fraktur were often applied inside the lids of painted chests only further signals the survival of traditional German-American values.

The third decorative painting style associated with Spitler appears on the present chest and a nearly identical example now in a private collection. Also reflective of German-American cultural beliefs, this distinctive style is intrinsically linked to the decorative tradition of fraktur. In the context of German-American folk art, the term fraktur suggests the fractured quality of the pictures and lettering on illuminated manuscripts. The decoration on the front of this chest is similarly visually fractured. The design is a highly stylized and abstracted two-dimensional rendering of a real-life object. In this instance, the inspiration for the design was a tall clock, quite possibly one that Spitler painted (CWF acc. 73.2000.3). Ornamented in Spitler's naturalistic style, the clock case features a painted scene that alludes to the cycle of life. However, Spitler's design for the chest is a straightforward abstraction of the architectonic clock hood and specifically depicts the latter's broken scroll pediment and central ball-and-spire finial. The painted quarter-fans on the chest echo the fanlike rosettes on the clock's pediment, while the black and white frieze at the bottom center of the panel resembles a painted design on the Spitler clock in Hurst and Prown fig. 107.2 and inlaid versions on many other Valley clock cases, including CWF acc. 1974-677.

The significance of the stylized clock image on the chest has yet to be fully understood, and many ideas remain to be explored, including the German-American fascination with time. Inventory analyses suggest that in comparison to other parts of the South, clocks were especially favored in backcountry German-American communities. While this pattern may indicate nothing more than a regional preference for tall clocks, it also may reflect a deeper cultural motivation. A type of fraktur called "spiritual chimes" depicts clock dials or complete tall clocks, which serve as reminders of the twelve petitions to be given at regular intervals throughout the day and which are allusions to the "foundation of the twelve prophets and the teaching of the twelve apostles." Given the strong emphasis on themes of continuity and regeneration in German-American culture, the clock is a most appropriate visual metaphor. Just as German-American farmers and medical practitioners depended on regular solar, lunar, and astrological cycles, their religious lives were ordered around a progressive spiritual cycle that culminated in the union with God.

Beyond such thematic investigations, more also needs to be learned about the cabinetmakers or joiners who built the chests and the clock cases that Spitler decorated. Research by MESDA has revealed a large number of joiners and cabinetmakers working in the northern Valley of Virginia, but none can be directly associated with the Spitler decorated cases. A variety of structural and stylistic approaches are found on the furniture in this group, which in turn suggests production by several different woodworking shops. However, the two chests and tall clock in the CWF collection probably represent the hand of a single maker. Distinguishing characteristics of the work of this unidentified artisan include the prominent use of thickly cut yellow pine components and plain cove moldings above the feet. Like many other German-American woodworkers, this craftsman relied heavily on wooden pin, or trunnel, construction. On the CWF chests, the base moldings are secured with two series of pins, one driven into the bottom board and the other through the case sides into the lower part of the case; the ends of the latter pins are cut off so as not to interfere with storage. The lid moldings, which extend around all four sides, are also pinned in place. On chest 1990.2000.1, the drawer sides are traditionally dovetailed together, but the drawer bottom is attached to the sides with wooden pins. A detail that particularly distinguishes this maker is the insertion of a vertical pin through the uppermost dovetail pin at each corner.

Johannes Spitler worked in Massanutten for only a decade or so, but his decorative ideas had a lasting influence on other area painters, as suggested by a number of painted chests with similarly rendered organic and geometric motifs, notably the paired birds and crescent moons. Sometime around 1807, Spitler's parents moved to Fairfield County, Ohio. Johannes and several of his married siblings followed shortly. What he did in Ohio remains a mystery. Like many other German-American settlers, he may have spent part of his time farming. In 1826, Jacob Spitler deeded 106 acres to his son, Johannes, who appears as "John" in the Fairfield County records. Spitler sold this property in 1835, a year after the death of his wife, Susanna. Two years later, he died at the age of sixty-two. Several furniture forms with Spitler-like designs have been found in Ohio, but they cannot be tied to Spitler's work with any certainty. The only hint of what Spitler did for the final quarter-century of his life in Ohio is a claim against his estate seeking repayment for a wide range of goods including many references to large quantities of liquor, suggesting that he may have operated a tavern. The Fairfield County probate records note that "Found in chest of said Spitler" were three books printed in German, an ax, and a spade. His estate also included a tall clock, a large chest, a small chest, and an "old chair," but no large tool or painter's kits.

InscribedNone.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe chest was acquired by the CWF at the 1995 estate sale of Henry P. Deyerle, a prominent collector of western Virginia artifacts. Deyerle acquired the chest in 1984 via antiques dealer Robert Crawford from James E. Gander of Page Co., Va. The chest had been in the Gander family for most of the twentieth century and possibly longer. According to oral tradition, this chest and another virtually identical example (now privately owned) were originally made for sisters who lived on adjoining farms in Shenandoah (now Page) Co., Va.

Provenance draft by Spitler scholar Betsy Davison (6-3-2020) suggests that the chest did not descended completely in the Gander family as suggested by the known ownership history but likely came into that family through Lelia Blanche Shaffer (1887-1970) who married Lester Gander (1885-1947). The direct maternal descent to Lelia traces back to her great grandmother Esther Rothgeb (1786-1840) who married Isaac Spitler (1794-1862) son of Abraham Spitler (1746-1830) and Mary Strickler (1746-1817) and cousin of Johannes Spitler, the chest decorator. Esther Rothgeb Spitler's sister Anna Rothgeb Strickler (1784-1856) is the likely owner of another Spitler decorated chest. Anna and her husband Jacob Stricker (1770-1842) were also the owners of the Spitler decorated clock (AFAM) and hanging cupboard. Esther's sister-in law Mary Hite Rothgeb (wife of Esther's half-brother Abraham Rothgeb 1766-1848) also owned a Spitler decorated chest formerly known as the Hite/Rothgeb chest; twin to 1995-94). The profusion of Spitler painted furniture in the extended Rothgeb family is suggestive of Esther's possible ownership of 1995-94. However, there is also the possibility that the chest descended to Lelia Blanche Shaffer through her grandfather Hamilton G. Varner (1815-1902) son of Barbara Hershberger (1785-1857). Barbara's first cousin once removed, Suzanna Hershberger (1780-1853), owned Spitler decorated chest #34 in Davison's book. Suzanna was Barbara's father Samuel Hershberger's (1764-1830) first cousin.

The oral history that refers to 1995-94 and its twin being owned by sisters on adjacent farms is likely based on the fact that this chest and its twin were on adjacent farms during the late 19th or early 20th century in which resided sisters-in-law.