Attributed to the Sharrock Family
Northampton County or Bertie County, North Carolina, 1797
Catalog no. 154
Made in northeastern North Carolina, this china press is one of more than twenty case pieces attributed to the Sharrock family of cabinetmakers and carpenters. Cabinetmaker Thomas Sharrock (ca. 1741-ca. 1802) fathered eleven sons, six of whom apparently followed him into the woodworking trades and probably trained in his shop. Although Sharrock furniture features mainly British-inspired design and construction, some pieces are ornamented with retardataire baroque features such as broken-scroll pediments, paneled lower lights on glazed doors, pierced finials, and chip-carved rosettes like those seen here. Some of these Germanic elements closely parallel the work of another Roanoke basin cabinetmaker known only by the initials W.H., who made the adjacent desk and almost certainly was a German immigrant. The exposure of the Sharrocks to the work of the W.H. artisan may explain the curious combination of distinctive decorative elements and conservative British cabinetmaking traditions in the group of furniture attributed to them.