image of object
Photo: Courtesy of the Martha's Vineyard Museum, Edgartown, Mass., Photo by Bob Schellhammer.
Click the image to enlarge

High chest of drawers

Object number

RIF4270

Maker

Maker Unknown

Dimensions

70 × 39 3/4 × 19 7/8 in. (177.8 × 100.965 × 50.483 cm)

Date

1760–75

Current location

Martha's Vineyard Museum

Geography

Made in, or possibly made in Rhode Island
(view a map of Rhode Island)

Medium

Mahogany (primary); chestnut, white pine (secondary)

Inscriptions

Numbers beginning with "5" at the top and ending with "I" at the bottom, in chalk in large florid script on the back of upper case drawers; similar numbering on the back of lower case drawers; vertical mark in chalk follows every number; well-worn chalk numbers also present on drawer sides; "18 October first [at least two illegible words]" in pencil on side of an end drawer in lower case.

Provenance

Originally owned by Ephraim Pease (1737–1789) and his wife, Hannah Harper Pease (1738–1767), Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; by descent to their daughter, Love Pease (born 1762), Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; by descent to the niece of her daughter, Nellie Norton. Florence M. Troemner and Clara L. Troemner; given to the Martha's Vineyard Museum

Associated names

Ephraim Pease
Hannah Harper Pease
Love Pease
Florence M. Troemner
Clara L. Troemner
Nellie Norton

Bibliography

Brock Jobe, Gary R. Sullivan, and Jack O'Brien, Harbor and Home: Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2009), 232–33, no. 80.
Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, N.H., New Hampshire Fall Auction, sale cat. (October 25, 2009), 47 (comp.cit).