The Queen Anne style had passed from fashion in urban centers by the time this secretary bookcase was made, but vernacular furniture made in rural areas retained elements of the style late into the eighteenth century. This secretary is painted with a tortoiseshell-like patterning overall, in shades of brown, black, red, and ocher. The desk front is further embellished with a branching tree design emerging from a mound of earth, a common motif associated with furniture, decoration, and textiles of the Connecticut River Valley. Painting in imitation of tortoiseshell was a popular ground for japanned ornamentation of exotic birds, flowers, figures, and animals and was favored as a surface treatment on furniture made in Boston and, later, New York. The arduous lacquering process that characterizes true japanning was adapted by rural artisans, who also interpreted in paint the figural elements that would have been applied as raised and gilded gesso. Instructions for this type of imitative painting were available through various published artists’ manuals, such as the well-known A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing (1688), by John Stalker and George Parker. This important resource included a chapter that taught methods of imitative painting, titled “To Imitate and Counterfeit Tortoise-shell and Marble."

Stacy C. Hollander, "Secretary Bookcase," in American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 296.