Philadelphia Antiques Show 2022

81 THE PH I LADE L PH I A SHOW 1985 NEAT AND TIDY To celebrate her publication Neat and Tidy: Boxes and Their Contents Used in Early American Households (Penguin, 1985), the Massachusetts-based collector and historian Nina Fletcher Little (1903-1993) curated the loan exhibit for the 1985 Philadelphia show. Her essay in the catalogue captured the essence of her book, describing how because many of the purposes for which boxes “were made have become obsolete, they help in the understanding and appreciation of lifestyles that have now disappeared.” (p.103). She divided boxes into those made by artisans and those made in a factory, and then further distinguished them by their use (utilitarian or decorative), ornament (i.e. carved, inlaid, or painted), and form (i.e., plain, footed, or sarcophagus). Most of Little’s primary research focused on New England but, appropriately, most of the boxes in the eye-catching loan exhibit hailed from Pennsylvania. A comprehensive reading of probate inventories from Philadelphia County and parts of Southeastern Pennsylvania reveals a range of box owners (merchants, farmers, doctors) and descriptions (linen, spice, dressing, medicinal). Spice boxes (o en described as “spice chest” and “spice cabinet”) were common and were listed in parlors or kitchens from the 1680s and into the 1750s. Commonly misunderstood, the term spice during this period references its Latin root meaning sort, kind, or ware. Thus, it references not seasonings that we think of today, but rather all manner of things, and early spice chests contained treasured items like floral seeds, shells, fossils, ribbons, and money. Dressing boxes like this example o en appeared in the same houses as spice boxes, but dressing boxes were found in bed chambers on top of chests of drawers and contained the more personal items of their owners. Elizabeth Holt owned “a Mahogany Chest of Drawers and dressing box” when she died in Philadelphia in 1749 and Chester County farmer Thomas Vallentine owned in 1762 a “Case of Drawers and Dressing Box.” The form of this dovetailed dressing box closely mimics a full-scale chest over drawers that held linens in many 18th-century Pennsylvania houses. The inlaid ornament lightens the dark walnut as well as personalizes it for the owner. The maker used a compass to lay out the interweaving arcs with a mind towards the neoclassical taste of the day as well as creating a scalloped frame for the inscription on the front face and the extraordinary portrait on the ends. Like the inlaid ornament, that follows painted traditions of portraits on chests. Dressing Box , Berks County, Pennsylvania, Circa 1760 Walnut, white pine, lightwood inlay 14 ⁄ inches x 21 ⁄ inches x 11 ⁄ inches Courtesy of Bernard & S. Dean Levy, Inc.