Court cupboard

The cupboard-used for the storage of textiles and other goods and for the proud display of silver, glass, ceramics, and other costly wares-was one of the most expensive and prominent articles of furniture in New England houses of the seventeenth century. Few examples are as richly ornamented as this large one, which is embellished with nearly the full vocabulary of seventeenth-century ornament: shallow relief carving, seen here in foliate panels in the wide drawer front; crisp turnings in maple; moldings derived from architectural sources; and painted decoration, here in the form of black paint used in imitation of ebony. Recent research has linked this cupboard to a woodworking shop located in the area of Ipswich or Newbury in northern Essex County, Massachusetts, where at least ten woodworking families are known to have been active in the second half of the seventeenth century. These craftsmen produced a substantial body of sophisticated furniture, including chests of drawers, tables, and cupboards that belie their rural, and seemingly rustic, origin. This cupboard is a late example from that tradition, notable for the high quality of its turned pillars and applied half-columns.Although the cupboard and other furniture from this shop are products of the Anglo-American tradition, they also owe at least some of their inspiration to Parisian furniture from the last half of the sixteenth century, particularly the architectural case pieces produced in the Second School of Fountainbleau (active 1540–1590). These Parisian designs spread through the emigration of craftsmen and printed materials to provincial France, England, and, eventually, New England, where they found expression in the work of American joiners and turners in the New World.This text was adapted from Ward, et al., MFA Highlights: American Decorative Arts & Sculpture (Boston, 2006) available at www.mfashop.com/mfa-publications.html.

The cupboard--used to store textiles and to display silver, glass, ceramics, and other costly wares--was among the most expensive and prominent articles of domestic furniture. This example is richly embellished with almost the full vocabulary of seventeenth-century ornament: shallow relief carving; crisp turnings; moldings derived from architectural sources; and decoration painted black, in imitation of ebony. Period inventories mention fine linen covering the tops of cupboards, such as the "two diaper cuberd cloaths" and "one hollond one" in the 1691 inventory of Jonathan Avery of Dedham.