Wall Box with Eagle and Floral Decoration1790–182022 × 13 × 6"Paint on white pineGift of Ralph Esmerian2005.8.200The shaped backboard joining shaped slightly canted sides to the two open compartments, the back having an arched concave reserve containing a spread-wing American eagle, and five floral rosettes, the upper pocket is adorned with symmetrically arranged relief-carved yellow pot of overflowing flowers, the whole retaining its original undisturbed polychromed decoration, in shades of red yellow green and black.1544963334P1.2001.078Artist unidentifiedContainersThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain. http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24596WethersfieldWethersfieldUnited StatesConnecticutMaine Antiques Digest, JulyThree Dimensional WorkseMuseum - Collection HighlightsWethersfieldThe Wethersfield area of Connecticut has been known for its distinctive carving traditions since the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when Peter Blin is credited with creating the chests known as the Sunflower group. This hanging wall box, made nearly one hundred years later at the turn of the nineteenth century, continues that tradition with its robustly carved surface. Its strong overall embellishment is crowned with a bold carving of a fierce American eagle–proud symbol of the young republic–emerging in relief from a recessed arched reserve carved directly into the wood. The back is made of a single piece of wood, and on the front are two pockets with applied front panels that display exuberant relief carvings of flowering stems, a footed urn of flowers, pinwheels, and the segmented rosettes familiar from other Connecticut River Valley furniture, decorative arts, and gravestones. Tradition maintains that the wall box descended in the Brainard family, which has a long history in Wethersfield and Hartford, Connecticut. A second, closely related example may also have come from a Connecticut family that moved to Mount Vernon, Maine.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Wall Box with Eagle and Floral Decoration," in American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 423.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgboxAccording to MAD, a second similar box exists in Maine. Letter in file from Samuel Pennington to Ralph (February 10, 1989) states that owner of other box is Betty Berdan who bought the box that descended in the Brainard family of Hartford and Wethersfield, Connecticut.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24596http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24596http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster24596P1.2001.07817901820 2005 8 20 The Wethersfield area of Connecticut has been known for its distinctive carving traditions since the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when Peter Blin is credited with creating the chests known as the Sunflower group. This hanging wall box, made nearly one hundred years later at the turn of the nineteenth century, continues that tradition with its robustly carved surface. Its strong overall embellishment is crowned with a bold carving of a fierce American eagle–proud symbol of the young republic–emerging in relief from a recessed arched reserve carved directly into the wood. The back is made of a single piece of wood, and on the front are two pockets with applied front panels that display exuberant relief carvings of flowering stems, a footed urn of flowers, pinwheels, and the segmented rosettes familiar from other Connecticut River Valley furniture, decorative arts, and gravestones. Tradition maintains that the wall box descended in the Brainard family, which has a long history in Wethersfield and Hartford, Connecticut. A second, closely related example may also have come from a Connecticut family that moved to Mount Vernon, Maine.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Wall Box with Eagle and Floral Decoration," in American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 423.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgboxAccording to MAD, a second similar box exists in Maine. Letter in file from Samuel Pennington to Ralph (February 10, 1989) states that owner of other box is Betty Berdan who bought the box that descended in the Brainard family of Hartford and Wethersfield, Connecticut.