PENNSYLVANIA, POSSIBLY LANCASTER COUNTY, DATED 1781

With its contrasting wood inlaid in an astragal panel on a walnut case over a two drawer base, this chest is closely related to work created in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania German settlers. Beginning in 1683, Germans began to settle in Pennsylvania in an area now called Germantown. From 1727 to 1775, over 50,000 Germans immigrated to this area. With them they brought their traditions of lifestyle, and craftmaking. Hinged top chests were the primary method of storage for the immigrants, and are considered the pre-cursor to the chest-of-drawers. Many of the surviving Lancaster County chests are paint-decorated, whilst fewer are inlaid. A related example is illustrated in Fabian, The Pennsylvania German Decorated Chest (New York, 1978), fig. 158.