Secretary Bookcase1760–178067 3/4 × 37 × 16 3/4"Paint on maple and pineEva and Morris Feld Folk Art Acquisition Fund1981.12.10
152278114Artist unidentifiedFurniture/FurnishingsThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain. http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20048United StatesThree Dimensional Works
FURNITUREPainted furnitureTall secretary with slant-front desk and four graduated drawers. Bookcase-top with closed paneled doors and flat top with projected molding cornice; on bracket feet. Overall "tortoiseshell" pattern painted decoration. Slant-front desk with painted decoration of central tree flanked by two tri-leaf motifs on ground.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.This rural expression of the Queen Anne style was probably made after the period had already passed. The bracket feet relate to rural examples of the 1760-1800 period and the region can best be determined by the primary and secondary woods used. This has yet to be established. Flat-top secretaries were primarily made by rural craftsmen unable to construct the more complex broken-pediment or bonnet tops most frequently associated with this style of furniture.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20048http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20048http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster2004817601780 1981 12 1 FURNITUREPainted furnitureTall secretary with slant-front desk and four graduated drawers. Bookcase-top with closed paneled doors and flat top with projected molding cornice; on bracket feet. Overall "tortoiseshell" pattern painted decoration. Slant-front desk with painted decoration of central tree flanked by two tri-leaf motifs on ground.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.This rural expression of the Queen Anne style was probably made after the period had already passed. The bracket feet relate to rural examples of the 1760-1800 period and the region can best be determined by the primary and secondary woods used. This has yet to be established. Flat-top secretaries were primarily made by rural craftsmen unable to construct the more complex broken-pediment or bonnet tops most frequently associated with this style of furniture.