China press

Date1797

Attributed to Sharrock Family

OriginAmerica, North Carolina, Bertie County or Northampton County

MediumBlack walnut, yellow pine, and birch

DimensionsOH: 108"; OW: 45"; OD: 18 3/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1951-433

DescriptionAppearance: Bonnet top with molded broken-scroll pediment, chip-carved rosettes, and (replaced) comb-form finial; two glazed upper doors with blind lower panels, the whole flanked by fluted quarter columns with lamb's tongue blocks at top and bottom; upper case encloses three shelves with deeply scalloped front edges; lower case features two flat-paneled doors under two half-width drawers under a full-width slider, all flanked by columns and blocks like those on the upper case; simple base molding on four ogee bracket feet.

Construction: The lower case consists of side panels with a dovetailed bottom board and a framed plinth at the top to which the waist molding is nailed. The quarter-columns are nailed to the front edges of the side panels. Vertical, half-lapped backboards are set into a rabbet with a wide variety of original nails, suggesting that the maker used whatever fasteners came to hand. The front feet are blind dovetailed, and those at the rear feature open dovetails on the rear bracket faces. The doors conceal two fixed pine shelves with walnut nosings. The shelves, the shallow dustboards for the drawers, and the drawer runners mounted behind them are set into the case sides with sliding dovetails that stop just short of the front edges. Birch drawer guides are set behind the quarter-columns. Each is attached by means of a single nail driven through a large central gouge cut. The positioning of the nail secures the guide and also allows the side panels to expand and contract. Drawer bottoms are set into grooves along the front and sides and flush-nailed at the rear. Long glue strips, now worn away, were initially fixed to the fronts and sides of the drawer bottoms. The slider is constructed with tongue-and-groove side battens mitered at the front.

The upper case consists of a yellow pine bottom board and a black walnut top board, each dovetailed to the case sides. A secondary inner top board of yellow pine rests in sliding dovetails in the case sides. Inner side panels of yellow pine are set between the bottom board and the inner top board and are separated from the case sides with battens. The shelves rest in sliding dovetails in the inner side panels. The tympanum is tenoned into the quarter-columns and nailed to the front edge of the top board. Vertical supports for the enclosed pediment are dadoed into the top board and covered with a "roof" of thin, nailed-on yellow pine boards. Each rosette is secured with a single screw driven from behind. All doors exhibit through-tenon construction; those on the bottom did not originally feature pins. The blind panels in the upper doors are nailed into the muntins from the back.

Materials: Black walnut sides, upper case top board, front rails, cornice, rosettes, doors, door blind panels, drawer fronts, slider, shelf nosings in lower case, quarter-columns, base molding, and exposed parts of feet; birch drawer guides; all remaining components of yellow pine.
Label TextThis china press was made in northeastern North Carolina, where the form was particularly popular. It is one of more than twenty china presses, bookcases, chests of drawers, desks, and corner cupboards attributed to the Sharrock family of cabinetmakers and carpenters. Residents of Northampton and Bertie Counties, the Sharrocks produced one of the most cohesive groups of early North Carolina furniture yet known. Attributions to the family are made possible by a surviving chest of drawers made and signed in 1787 by George Sharrock (1765-1814), eldest son of cabinetmaker Thomas Sharrock (ca. 1741-ca. 1802) (MESDA research file 3741). Thomas Sharrock fathered eleven sons, six of whom apparently followed him into the woodworking trades and likely trained in his shop, which complicates the attribution of a specific object to a specific individual. When he died about 1802, Thomas Sharrock's estate included a large shop equipped with four work benches, a "lathe bench," a wide array of chisels, gouges, and planes, and a supply of lumber that included black walnut, tulip poplar, and ash. Sharrock's operation must have been sizable.

Inscribed"1797" is faintly scratched into the front left corner of the top board on the lower case.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceCWF acquired the press in 1951 from antiques dealer Hilda W. Powell of Petersburg, Va., who reported having purchased it at an early house near the Virginia-North Carolina border in the late 1920s.