Margaret Berwyn Schiffer's collection of furniture and decorative art was auctioned at Pook & Pook, Ltd. on January, 18, 2023. Of particular interest was this spice box made of red cedar with light-wood line inlay on the door, sides, top, and interior drawer fronts. Schiffer owned the spice box when she first illustrated it in … Continue reading A “Dear Little Chest”
Inlay
An Extraordinary Lancaster Clock Case
My most recent article for Incollect magazine on the John Hoff clock and case made in 1768 in the Dietrich American furniture collection is available online and will be out in a print edition shortly. You can see it here: https://www.incollect.com/articles/dietrich-american-foundation-an-extraordinary-lancaster-tall-case-clock Next week after the opening of Overlap, I will write another post about this … Continue reading An Extraordinary Lancaster Clock Case
Inlaying Dots Part II
A detail of the box from the William K du Pont collection. The box, the chest-on-stand from the same sale, and the desk in the collection of the Dietrich American collection can all be attributed to the same shop based on similarities of the inlay design. There are 46 inlaid dots on the top, front, … Continue reading Inlaying Dots Part II
Inlaying Dots Part I
One of the things I’m hoping to accomplish with this series of posts is to give a broader understanding of the amount of labor (as well as imagination and technical ability) – hence cost to the consumer – that is required to create the objects illustrated in the previous post with the complex light-wood sting … Continue reading Inlaying Dots Part I
Stringing Inlay Designs, Part II
The abstract geometric bi-lateral designs of light-wood stringing terminating with clusters of three multi-wood species dots inlaid on solid black walnut drawer fronts seen on several chests of drawers in the previous post has long been associated with Chester County, Pennsylvania. A single motif is centered on the drawer pull of each short drawer and … Continue reading Stringing Inlay Designs, Part II
In Proportion to the Trouble 