Cellaret

Date1797 (dated)

MediumBlack walnut and yellow pine.

DimensionsOH. 43 3/4; OW. 33 1/2; OD. 18 1/2.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1940-110

DescriptionAppearance: rectangular upper case with half-round-over-cove cornice molding; top board with side batten, mitered at front; plain front and side boards; divided case interior with twelve small bottle slots and one large slot; brass oval escutcheon at top center of front, iron lock with corresponding iron hatch on underside of top; cove-over-half-round waist molding; full-width slide with scratch beaded slider with brass pulls, set over two drawers with brass bail-and-rosette pulls; straight Marlborough legs with scratch bead on outer edge and running up interior edge and along bottom of the front rail.

Construction: The top board is framed on both sides with battens mitered at the front corners and tenoned in place. While the front of the case is mitered and blind dovetailed to the sides, the yellow pine back boards are half-blind dovetailed in position. The upper case has nailed-on bottom boards and sits in a rabbet on the frame formed by the nailed-on waist molding. Traditional pinned mortise-and-tenon joinery secures the legs to the frame. Large pins are found on the sides; smaller pins appear on the front. The slider and drawers move on yellow pine runners wrought-nailed to yellow pine inner rails nailed to the case sides. A yellow pine kicker prevents the slider from tipping downward, and dowels at the rear act as stops. The back one-third of the slider consists of a butt-joined yellow pine extension. Thin drawer stops are nailed to the rear of the case. The dovetailed drawers have bottoms that are chamfered and set into grooves on the front and sides and flush-nailed at the rear. The bottoms were originally supported by a series of evenly spaced glue blocks set along the front and sides.

Materials: Black walnut top, case front, case sides, moldings, legs, rails, blades, pins, front two-thirds of slider, and drawer fronts; yellow pine inner rails, runners, kickers, back one-third of slider, drawer stops, drawer sides, drawer backs, and bottoms.

Label TextWhile the chamfered Marlborough legs, simple bail-and-rosette brasses, and scratch-beaded decoration on this massive black walnut bottle case mirror those on examples from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, ink inscriptions on the drawers reveal that it was made much later, in August 1797. The only outward indication of post-colonial production is the rectangular form of the carcass: earlier examples are almost always square in plan or nearly so.

Stylistic conservatism aside, the complex blind-mitered dovetails that attach the front of this case to the sides bespeak the hand of an adept artisan. The extra effort required to execute such intricate joinery produced a more refined piece of furniture and probably resulted in additional charges for the original owner. That the unidentified maker of the case also offered cheaper alternatives is revealed by a nearly identical example attributed to the same shop. The only significant difference between the two is that the front corners of the second case are joined to the sides with less labor-intensive half-blind dovetails that leave the joinery exposed on the left and right sides of the carcass (CWF accession 1988-393). There is no question about the price paid for the bottle case shown here: "4 1/2 $" was inscribed on both drawers just under the date.

Typical of most late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century southern bottle cases, this example was designed to stand against a wall. Its rear face is made of unfinished yellow pine, and its flat lid was simply propped against the wall when the case was open. The interior has twelve square bottle slots and one large undivided opening. The larger space might have held drinking vessels or it may have been made to store loaf sugar and other ingredients used in the preparation of the alcoholic punches then popular. The slider in the substantial lower frame provided a space for mixing and pouring beverages; the drawers below could have housed implements such as spice graters and ladles.

The bottle case was found near Williamsburg in the late 1930s, which, together with the neat-and-plain character of the design and the meticulous workmanship, suggests production in Tidewater Virginia, probably in an urban center.

InscribedWritten in ink on the back of the left drawer are "22nd August 1797 / 4 1/2 $ 1[0?]/4 ditto." A similar inscription and an illegible word are written on the bottom of the right drawer.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceThe bottle case was purchased in 1940 from Ann Bell Van Landingham, a Petersburg, Va., dealer in southern furniture. She reported that the piece was "bought only a short distance from there" [Williamsburg].