Lot Essay
With its sunken geometric panel decoration and turned flattened ball feet, this spice box illustrates the aesthetic influence of Dutch and English cabinet forms. The dovetailed case, rabbeted interior framework, and use of pine and aromatic white cedar for the drawers are all features common to spice chests made within the Germanic cabinetmaking tradition of Pennsylvania (see Lee Ellen Griffith, The Pennsylvania Spice Box (West Chester, PA, 1986), pp.15-19). In contrast to the more typical interior configuration of a central square drawer surrounded by short drawers on all sides, this cabinet features an arrangement of graduated drawers. A spice box with similar geometric panel decoration and with applied turnings is illustrated in David H. Stockwell, "The Spice Cabinets of Pennsylvania and New Jersey," Philadelphia Furniture and Its Makers (New York, 1975), p.22, fig. 1.