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Lot Essay
Boldly decorated in red, green and white against a dark ground, this diminutive chest illustrates the penchant for all-over painted furniture along the Connecticut coast during the early decades of the eighteenth century. It is one of approximately twenty case pieces similarly embellished with floral and bird motifs; yet as the only dated example, it is a critical survival for understanding the origins and authorship of the group as a whole. As many were discovered in Guilford, such chests were first known as "Guilford" chests within the collecting community and it was not until 1958, with the discovery of an inventory containing painting supplies and unfinished furniture, that the group was associated with the Jersey-born craftsman, Charles Guillam (1671-1727) of nearby Saybrook. Guillam's roots from Jersey, one of the Channel Islands under English rule but culturally aligned with France, have led scholars to evaluate the influence of Continental European aesthetics as well as the group's relationship to earlier Connecticut traditions. See William L. Warren, "Were the Guilford Painted Chests Made in Saybrook?" Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin (January 1958), pp. 1-10; Robert F. Trent, "A Channel Islands Parallel for the Early Eighteenth-Century Connecticut Chests Attributed to Charles Guillam," Studies in the Decorative Arts (Fall 1994), pp. 75-91; Martha H. Willoughby, "From Carved to Painted: Chests of Central and Coastal Connecticut, c. 1675-1725," (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, Delaware, 1994), pp. 4-76, 98-115.
Bearing the date 1730 and made three years after Guillam's death, the Blair Collection chest conclusively indicates that another craftsman was responsible for at least some of the chests in the group. Variances in construction, as well as in the design and execution of the paintwork, indicate the work of different woodworkers and paint decorators. Its design laid out with a compass, with the repetition of a few stylized floral motifs and sides adorned with floral sprays, the Blair Collection chest was painted by the same hand as two smaller chests, one at Winterthur Museum (fig. 1) and another privately owned (illustrated in Dean A. Fales, Jr., American Painted Furniture 1660-1880 (New York, 1972), p. 31, fig. 33). Closely related painted motifs are also seen on a board chest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a chest-of-drawers privately owned (John T. Kirk, Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Hartford, CT, 1967), no. 42; "Living with Antiques: A Connecticut house in northern New England," The Magazine Antiques (February 1972), p. 366). For a discussion of the decoration and paint analysis of other chests from this group, see Frances Gruber Safford, "Floral Painting on Early Eighteenth-Century American Furniture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art," in Painted Wood: History and Conservation, Valerie Dorge and F. Carey Howlett, eds. (Los Angeles, 1998), pp. 199-202.
Mrs. Blair purchased the chest from the George Ives sale in 1924. In her files, an undated letter from F.W. Fuessenich indicates that an unnamed Connecticut dealer had sold this chest to Ives for $25 after purchasing it from his aunt, a Mrs. Robinson of Middletown, for $2.
Bearing the date 1730 and made three years after Guillam's death, the Blair Collection chest conclusively indicates that another craftsman was responsible for at least some of the chests in the group. Variances in construction, as well as in the design and execution of the paintwork, indicate the work of different woodworkers and paint decorators. Its design laid out with a compass, with the repetition of a few stylized floral motifs and sides adorned with floral sprays, the Blair Collection chest was painted by the same hand as two smaller chests, one at Winterthur Museum (fig. 1) and another privately owned (illustrated in Dean A. Fales, Jr., American Painted Furniture 1660-1880 (New York, 1972), p. 31, fig. 33). Closely related painted motifs are also seen on a board chest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a chest-of-drawers privately owned (John T. Kirk, Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Hartford, CT, 1967), no. 42; "Living with Antiques: A Connecticut house in northern New England," The Magazine Antiques (February 1972), p. 366). For a discussion of the decoration and paint analysis of other chests from this group, see Frances Gruber Safford, "Floral Painting on Early Eighteenth-Century American Furniture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art," in Painted Wood: History and Conservation, Valerie Dorge and F. Carey Howlett, eds. (Los Angeles, 1998), pp. 199-202.
Mrs. Blair purchased the chest from the George Ives sale in 1924. In her files, an undated letter from F.W. Fuessenich indicates that an unnamed Connecticut dealer had sold this chest to Ives for $25 after purchasing it from his aunt, a Mrs. Robinson of Middletown, for $2.