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

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

The extensive probate inventory of the joiner Charles Plumley (d. 1708, Philadelphia) is well known to furniture historians. A transcription can be found in Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630–1730 [New York: W. W. Norton, 1988], app. 1. He was in the middle of his career when he died and the inventory is a snapshot of a working … Continue reading To a “Dott bitt”