Blanket chest

Date1805-1820

MediumPainted white pine and iron.

DimensionsOH: 19 1/2": OW: 48 1/2": OD: 18 1/4" OH: 49.5 cm; OW: 123.2 cm; OD: 46.4cm

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1976.2000.1

DescriptionRectangular, lift-top chest with hinged, molded lid secured with butt hinges opening to a well with a till on the left side with a molded lid. Underneath of lid has two wood battens secured by screws. Case is of dovetailed construction, the bottom board is nailed on, and case is mounted on a molded base with scrolled bracket feet. Top, front, and sides painted light blue. Perimeter of front is painted with a diamond grid pattern in black and salmon/orange; this encloses two round paterae which flank an oval paterae, all of which are surrounded by black, wreath-like designs. These paterae are draped with black-painted swags of bellflowers. Front has initials "C K" painted in black.
Label TextThe German settlement of New York State began in 1710 when twenty-four hundred refugees from political and economic strife in Germany's Lower Palatinate arrived in the Hudson River Valley. These "Palatines" had been sent to North America from their temporary refuge in England by the British Government to produce tar and pitch for the British Navy. By 1712, the experiment ended, and some of the settlers moved west to the Schoharie and Mohawk River valleys. Later, a group of Swiss-Germans from Philadelphia settled the northwestern corner of Albany County and were assimilated into the life and culture of those Germans who had previously settled adjacent Schoharie County.
The preservation of German traditions within New York's dominant English culture is expressed by this chest which fuses Germanic design and construction with English neoclassical decoration. It and two other chests share the same palette of light blue, orange, and black, and similar decorative motifs, suggesting the hand of a single painter. The paterae, wreaths, and festoons of bellflowers were advanced by Robert Adam (1728-1792), the Scottish architect who was the leading interpreter of neoclassicism in England. This decorator may have learned the neoclassical decorative vocabulary from architectural pattern books, newspapers, or through exposure to furniture that was being produced in New York City.
A fusion of Germanic cabinetwork and English decoration distinquishes this chest as a produce of the German Palatine community of New York state. The oval and circular paterae, wreaths, and festoons of bellflowers painted are decorative motifs popularized by interpreters of neoclassicism in England beginning in the 1760s.
Inscribed"C" and "K" are painted on the facade of the chest.