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Lot Essay
Elements associated with the shop of Eliphalet Chapin of Hartford County, Connecticut, include the pierced fretwork of the scrolled pediment, the pinwheel rosettes, and the scalloped dentilling under the pediment and along the top of the bookcase; all of these characteristics can be seen on a bookcase illustrated in Three Centuries of Connecticut Furniture, (Hartford, 1935), cat. no. 110.
While the applied "aprons" of the shelf edges are an unusual feature, they imitate the shaping of the pigeonhole valances and are similar in profile to the shaped skirt of a chest-on-chest-on frame, loosely attributed to Chapin, which is currently in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated in Gerald Ward American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1988), pp. 184-185, cat. no. 87. The fan-carved treatment of the central interior drawer is also suggestive of Chapin's work, and can be seen on a desk-on-frame attributed to Chapin, also at Yale (see Ward, pp. 298-300, cat. no. 155).
It is not known whether David Gardiner owned this desk-and-bookcase or if his son, John Lyon Gardiner, purchased it or acquired it through his wife Sarah, the niece of Roger Griswold, a former governor of Connecticut.
While the applied "aprons" of the shelf edges are an unusual feature, they imitate the shaping of the pigeonhole valances and are similar in profile to the shaped skirt of a chest-on-chest-on frame, loosely attributed to Chapin, which is currently in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated in Gerald Ward American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, 1988), pp. 184-185, cat. no. 87. The fan-carved treatment of the central interior drawer is also suggestive of Chapin's work, and can be seen on a desk-on-frame attributed to Chapin, also at Yale (see Ward, pp. 298-300, cat. no. 155).
It is not known whether David Gardiner owned this desk-and-bookcase or if his son, John Lyon Gardiner, purchased it or acquired it through his wife Sarah, the niece of Roger Griswold, a former governor of Connecticut.