Robert A. Leath
Dutch Trade and Its Influence on Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake Furniture

American Furniture 1997

Full Article
Contents
  • Figure 1
    Figure 1

    Unknown artist, Sir Thomas Dale, England, ca. 1615. Oil on canvas. 80" x 45". (Courtesy, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund; photo, Ron Jennings.)

  • Figure 2
    Figure 2

    Augustine Herrman, Virginia and Maryland, 1670. Engraving on paper. 32" x 37". (Courtesy, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.)

  • Figure 3
    Figure 3

    Medallion of Prince Maurice of Orange, Holland, 1615. Cast brass. 1 3/4" x 1 1/2". (Courtesy, Flowerdew Hundred Museum.)

  • Figure 4
    Figure 4 Armchair, probably Virginia, 1650–1690. Oak. (Courtesy, Wadsworth Atheneum; photo, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.)
  • Figure 5
    Figure 5

    Court cupboard, possibly Virginia, 1620–1680. Oak. (Illustrated in Antiques 24, no. 9 [October 1938]: 216.)

  • Figure 6
    Figure 6

    Clothes cupboard, Virginia, 1650–1690. Walnut with yellow pine. H. 61 1/2", W. 61 3/4", D. 20". (Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.)

  • Figure 7
    Figure 7

    Detail of the back of the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 8
    Figure 8

    Kast, New York, 1650–1700. White and red oak. H. 70", W. 67", D. 25". (Courtesy, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Millia Davenport, 1988 (1988.21) Photograph ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

  • Figure 9
    Figure 9

    Pieter de Hooch, Portrait of a Family Making Music, Holland, 1663. Oil on canvas. 39 3/4" x 46". (Courtesy, Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of the Hanna Fund.)

  • Figure 10
    Figure 10

    Detail of a turned foot on the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 11
    Figure 11

    Detail of the mitered joinery and raised panels on the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 12
    Figure 12

    Drawing of a (a) mitered mortise-and-tenon joint and (b) flat-faced mortise-and-tenon joint. (Adapted from a drawing in Peter M. Kenny, Frances Gruber Safford, and Gilbert T. Vincent, American Kasten: The Dutch-Style Cupboards of New York and New Jersey 1650–1800 [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991], p. 12; artwork, Wynne Patterson.)

  • Figure 13
    Figure 13

    Detail of the dovetailed top and splined backboards on the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 14
    Figure 14

    Detail of the pegboard in the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 15
    Figure 15

    Detail of the interior shelving on the clothes cupboard illustrated in fig. 6.

  • Figure 16
    Figure 16

    Armchair, southeastern Virginia, 1680–1700. Cherry. H. 41 3/4", W. 23 1/2", D. 23 1/2". (Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.)

  • Figure 17
    Figure 17

    Armchair, Virginia, 1680–1700. Cherry, hickory, and white oak. H. 43 1/2", W. 25", D. 22 3/4". (Collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.)

  • Figure 18
    Figure 18

    Turned Great Chair, unidentified maker, New York or New Jersey, 1700-1728. Maple, ash, and cherry; painted black. H. 50", W. 23", D. 18". (Courtesy, Albany Institute of History & Art, Rockwell Fund.)

  • Figure 19
    Figure 19

    Stretcher table, eastern Virginia, 1690–1720. Walnut with cedrela. H. 26", W. 46 1/4", D. 32 1/4". (Courtesy, H. L. Chalfant Antiques.)

  • Figure 20
    Figure 20

    Draw-bar table, New York City, 1690–1710. Red gum with tulip poplar and pine. H. 29 3/4", frame dimensions: 35 7/8" x 20 3/8". (Private collection; photo, Gavin Ashworth.)