PROBABLY SOUTHEASTERN NEW ENGLAND, 1730-1760

Embellished with a variety of floral and vegetal motifs, scrolling thick stems and birds in flight, this small chest references several distinct early eighteenth-century painting traditions from Southeastern New England. The paired birds are simply outlined in white with speckled bodies and striated wings and bear a remarkable resemblance to the work of Robert Crosman (1707-1799) of Taunton, Massachusetts. However, their somewhat static stance and shortened beaks indicate they were executed by a different hand. Firmly outside of Crosman’s known oeuvre are the thick stems enlivened with a series of dots, which recall the paint-decorated chests associated with the Guilford/Saybrook area in coastal Connecticut, as do the thistle-like buds and flowers with outward splaying leaves (for examples from these related groups, see a diminutive chest-of-drawers, sold, Christie’s, New York, 21 January 2006, lot 519; a high chest at Winterthur Museum, acc. no. 1957.1110). Such disparate influences suggests the work of a paint-decorator perhaps working slightly later in the eighteenth century with awareness of the decorative traditions of both areas.