A recent study of documented nineteenth-century Maine furniture noted a strikingly contemporary aspect to its painted decoration, in which nature is captured in purely abstract terms of color and visual rhythms. The authors pointed to a group of furniture with sponge-grained decoration whose shades of ocher, yellow, green, and brown most likely were drawn from nature itself.

This simple pine blanket chest over two drawers is one of at least three related examples with highly similar dramatic painted decoration. The dynamic effect of fanlike motifs in autumnal colors does indeed suggest New England foliage and was probably achieved through vinegar graining or another technique in which the wet paint was manipulated through a chemical reaction or the use of a textured material. This surface treatment, imaginative rather than imitative, may be a rural expression of the notion of “fancy”—or imagination—that had been introduced after the turn of the nineteenth century in urban style centers and popularized by the 1820s and 1830s.

Stacy C. Hollander, "Chest over Drawers," in American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 325.