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Introduction

A Case for Boxes

October 16 - November 16, 1980

In this gallery American boxes from the late seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century have been brought together, and for the most part they are from the collection of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little. A detailed description of them can be found in Mrs. Little's Neat and Tidy, a copy of which is kept for reference in the gallery; other copies can be purchased in the Museum shop.

The oldest boxes in the gallery have been stacked on a seventeenth century carved Connecticut chest against the far wall to the left of the portrait. Not unlike their carved counterparts displayed on top of the Hadley chest in the previous gallery, they are representative of different regional schools of decoration. During the next century and a half, it will be increasingly dificult to define regional schools owing to increased mobility and a broad dissemination of ideas through common printed sources. A case in point is the work of the unidentified itinerant artist who decorated the wooden wall fragment en grisaille with owl and the small dome-top box with bird, both of which are displayed on the wall opposite the seventeenth century boxes. In the course of his travels around 1800 this unknown artist decorated interiors and furniture in New York State, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Perhaps today the best known of all the itinerant decorative painters active at the end of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century is Rufus Porter: numerous documented examples of his painted interiors can still be seen throughout northern New England. In view of the fact that Porter published a slim volume on Concord, New Hampshire, in the 1820s, which he revealed many of his decorative techniques, his work was often imitated. Most characteristic of his work is the incorporation of sponge-like trees in his landscapes, which were for the most part painted freehand directly onto the wet plaster, not unlike frescoes. The source of inspiration for his landscapes, as well as town and seascapes, were the scenic wallpapers then being produced in France, and which enjoyed great popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. A rare example of Rufus Porter's painted furniture decorated with a landscape is the box he presented to Pauline Porter, his cousin's wife. It is displayed along with the bandboxes at the opposite end of the room.

Stencils were often used as an alternative to freehand decoration for furniture and wallpaper. Two stenciled dome-top chests can be found directly below the wooden wall fragment. Graining was another popular form of decoration used for interior woodwork and furniture whereby inexpensive woods, such as pine, were made to resemeble a more expensive wood such as mahogany or rosewood. Several grained boxes are exhibited to the left of the wooden wall fragment to illustrate the variety of decorative techniques the grainer had at his disposal. Also a set of grainer's tools are on display in order to make the craft of the grainer more readily comprehensible.

Most of the boxes shown at the other end of the gallery were intended for female use. The tiger maple sewing and keepsake boxes were often decorated with watercolors by girls and young women in female academies which flourished in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century. The bandboxes have been displayed as three towering pyramids. The term "bandbox" goes back to the seventeenth century when such boxes were used for storing lace and slightly later narrow linen collar bands. In the early nineteenth century these boxes were manfactured with an eye to serving the storage needs of both men and women, and held "hats, caps, bonnest, shoes, muffs, etc." to quote from the label of the bandbox manufacturer, Avery and Company, 5 Union Street, Boston. Made of wood or cardboard, they were generally covered with brightly colored hand-blocked papers and like the work of Rufus Porter were frequently inspired by scenic French wallpapers. Bandboxes seem to have been especially popular with young women, and indeed became something of a status symbol among the ranks of girls who were attracted to work in the mills by the lure of higher wages.

An alternative to the factory for young men was a life at sea, and a variety of nautical boxes have been grouped at the entrance to this gallery. During their idle hours, keepsake boxes were often made for a sweetheart back home, such as the two dome-top boxes with deeply incised cross-hatching, or the scrimshaw domino box. Loggers in the backwoods of northern New England and Canada filled their free time with carving wooden boxes, in the form of books, as containers for spruce gum, and several of these have been included here as well. A young sailor from Tiverton, Rhode Island even tried his hand at imitating, albeit naively, the straw-decorated boxes then so popular on the Continent.

As the Orient was the principal destination of so many ships in the nineteenth century, it seemed appropriate at this point in the exhibition to include Chinese lacquered hat, shawl, and work boxes, many of which were brought back by on eof the great China Trade merchants from Providence, Edward Carrington. Tea was a mainstay of this trade, and therefore a variety of tea chests have been included, not to mention tea caddies made in the West to accomodate the Eastern product. Although it is one of the smallest objects in the exhibition, the tiny souvenir cardboard tea chest made in 1873 to commemorate the Boston Tea Party of 1773 should not be overlooked.

With the opening of Japan by Admiral Perry for trade with the West in 1853, a new source of exquisitely lacquered objects became available. Late nineteenth century collectors responded by actively collecting in this area with the result that this Museum has become the repository for some extraordinary examples, not the least of which is the seventeenth century bride's chest and the nineteenth century sedan chair. The latter was lovingly restored for this exhibition by two extraordinarily dedicated and highly talented individuals, Ann Saydah and Carolyn Morris.

As the decorative arts of Japan were untainted by the Industrial Revolution in the West, they were inspirational for the Arts and Crafts movement which took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly in England and America, as a means of encouraging individual craftsmen to be creative again and to take pride in their own work. The Providence Art Club served as a nucleus for the Arts and Crafts Movement in Rhode Island, while on nearby Martha's Vineyard it was the sculptor, Enid Yandell, and her Branstock school. Examples of copper and wood boxes from these Arts and Crafts centers are exhibited together by the entrance to C7.

The boxes at the far end of Gallery C9 cover many centuries and countries, come in all shapes and sizes, and are made of a wide variety of materials. The theme which unites them is that they were intended for personal use or pleasure, and that generally they were highly prized possessions of their owners, be it the treasure box which a little girl named Ellen from Boston filled with a highly personal collection of keepsakes to the handsome French document box bound in brass and tooled red leather from the 1820s.

The boxes which have been displayed as if they were sitting on giant building blocks in the center of the gallery are essentially a celebration of strong geometric forms thanks to the arresting profiles and use of dark wood, such as mahogany. Otherwise they have little in common other than the fact that they are, with one exception, English or American, and were made in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Their functions range from a draft drum used for raising troops in Rhode Island during the Civil War to an urn for housing knives and forks on an English Neo-Classical dining room sideboard at the end of the eighteenth century.

The final group of boxes, which are housed between the entrances to Gallery C8 and Gallery C9 are concerned with the ultimate box, otherwise known as a coffin. An eighteenth century coffin is put into the broader context of the funereal art by way of a portrait of a deceased child and a dome-top box decorated with urns and weeping willows. Shadow boxes were also thought highly appropriate as a vehicle for celebrating death, be it a nineteenth century wreath made from hair of the deceased, or the elaborate shadow box depicting the last mass of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI before they were imprisoned. Appropriately enough, the latter box is said to have been made from memory by a fellow prisoner.

Selected Objects

No Image Available

English

Fan Box, 1800s
20.132 v_01.jpg

Chinese

Box with birds and flowers, 1800s
Z0004323.jpg

Chinese

Hat Box, 1800s
64-043.jpg

Europe

Snuffbox, ca. 1900
Z0001601.jpg

Samuel Lovett Waldo

Portrait of Ann Matilda Kip Haight, ca. 1834
53-106.jpg

Johann Martin Satzger

Traveling Set with Silverware, 1747-1749
20-216.jpg

French

Snuffbox, 1700s
Z0034788.jpg

Lyonel Feininger

Church at Gelmeroda XII, 1929
No Image Available

Hall Type-Writer Co.

typewriter, 1881
22-017.jpg

British

Snuffbox, late 1800s
Z0054316.jpg

D.A. Alain

Candid Camera Duel, 1900s
No Image Available

American

Bandbox, late 1800s
No Image Available

Currier & Ives, designer

The Little Alms-Giver, mid 1800s - early 1900s
Z0001073.jpg

Attributed to Christian Frederich Herold

Tea Canister, 1730-1750
Z0001626.jpg

American, Massachusetts, Possibly Sudbury or Marlboro

Chest with Drawer, ca. 1710-1740
RISDM 34-919.jpg

French, Lyons

Wallpaper, ca. 1795
Z0006157.jpg

American

Fan box, early 1800s
79.023.jpg

American, Westerly Rhode Island

Collection Box, 1835-1845
43-523.jpg

American

Candle Box
Z0036658.jpg

John Brewster

Portrait of a Young Girl, ca. 1808-1821
RISDM 46-465-158.jpg

Daniel Marot

Plate from Second Livre d'Orlogeries (Second Book of Clockmaking/Watchmaking), 1712
Z0031073.jpg

Thomas Wilder

Portrait of Anna Baylies Bushee, 1848
RISDM 44-090.jpg

Bradley Hosford

Shop of Pynchon & Lee, Main Street, Springfield, Massachusetts, mid 1800s
No Image Available

Japanese

Inro, 1700s
RISDM 20-086 v_02.jpg

Japanese

Inro with Design of Chinese Scholars in Landscape, 1700s-1800s
RISDM 20-084abc v_03.jpg

Japanese, Japan

Inro with Design of Grasses, 1700s-1800s
No Image Available

Japanese

Kingfisher Inro with Netsuke and Ojime, 1700s
RISDM 20-422 v_01.jpg

Japanese

Inrō (small portable case) and Netsuke (belt toggle), 1800s
Z0033498.jpg

Sydney Richmond Burleigh, decorator

Shakespeare Chest, ca. 1900
Z0048739.jpg

American, United States of America

Celleret, late 1700s-early 1800s
13.478.jpg

Persian

Box
15-213.jpg

Gorham Manufacturing Company

Card Case, mid 1800s
20-1018.jpg

Dutch

Box, ca. 1800
Z0010871.jpg

Anthony Steel

Low-Back Writing-Arm Windsor Chair, 1791-1800
No Image Available

American

Box, early 1800s
No Image Available

Japanese, Japan

Inro, 1700s-1800s
No Image Available

Charles Aldridge

Tea Caddy, 1783-1784
Z0042551.jpg

American

Portrait of a Man, 1800s
No Image Available

Japanese

Chest, 1720
72-175.jpg

Belgian

Harp-shaped box, after 1869
No Image Available

Unknown artist

Handkerchief Box, ca. 1875
RISDM 34-975.jpg

Ferrouillat and Company, manufacturer

Wallpaper, ca. 1795
63-011-45.jpg

Italian

Box, Late 1800s
Z0012697.jpg

Unknown artist

Fan, mid 1800s
RISDM 75-023 v_04.jpg

German, Germany, probably Augsburg

Writing Desk (Schreibtisch), ca. 1590
No Image Available

Johann Georg Wille, designer

Portrait of Louis Phelypeaux, Count of St. Florentin, 1751
57.180 v_02.jpg

American, Rhode Island

RISD Silversmith Medal, ca. 1900
Z0025607.jpg

American

Case, 1800s
No Image Available

American

Spectacles with case, 1800s
Z0025606.jpg

American

Spectacles, 1800s
73-014-1 v_02.jpg

Probably John Shaw

Vinaigrette Box, ca. 1815-1825
48-331.jpg

French

Jewel Box, ca. 1360
No Image Available

Japanese

Cabinet, late 1800s
No Image Available

American, United States of America

Chest, 1766
RISDM 55-066 v_01.jpg

American, Rhode Island

Armchair, 1660-1690
Z0031075.jpg

English or European

Native American Sachem, ca. 1700
Z0033510.jpg

English

Cellaret, ca. 1790
Z0042550.jpg

Smith of Connecticut

Portrait of a Woman, 1800s
Z0000681.jpg

Johann Andreas Pfeffel I, engraver

Title Plate for Various New Inventions for Jewelry . . . (Unterschiedliche neue Inventionen von Geschmuckh . . .), ca. 1700
Z0000682.jpg

Christian Engelbrecht, engraver

Plate 2 from Various New Inventions for Jewelry . . . (Unterschiedliche neue Inventionen von Geschmuckh . . . ), ca. 1700
RISDM 34-1019.jpg

Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, manufacturer

Flowers and Garlands, 1774
33-326ab v_01.jpg

British

Snuffbox, late 1700s- early 1800s
No Image Available

American

Spectacles with case, 1800s
Z0025598.jpg

American

case, 1800s
Z0025597.jpg

American

spectacles, 1800s
No Image Available

Arthur Briscoe, designer

The Orator, 1926
No Image Available

Spanish, Spain

Vargueno, 1575-1650
33-025.jpg

Russian

Card case, 1800s
63-046-5.jpg

Unknown artist

Box
67-336.jpg

French

Cigarette case, ca. 1900
80-101.jpg

English, Birmingham England

Card case, ca. 1845
No Image Available

American

Hat box, mid 1800s
Z0007842.jpg

Chinese Qing, China

Court Scene, ca. 1770
Z0002635.jpg

Japanese

Miniature Portable Shrine with Kannon, mid 1700s
No Image Available

English, England

Knife Box, late 1700s
No Image Available

Japanese

Inro with Netsuke and Ojime
No Image Available

Japanese

Inro with Netsuke and Ojime, 1700s
Z0001524.jpg

Chinese, China, for export markets

Tea Chest on Stand, ca. 1820-1840
No Image Available

Japanese

Inro, 1700s
Z0034757.jpg

Henri Matisse

The Green Pumpkin, ca. 1916
Z0001129.jpg

English

Etui, 1740-1750
No Image Available

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, printmaker

Plate 31, 1830
Z0012590.jpg

Spanish

Fan and box, 1800s
Z0013248.jpg

Roger Fenton

Still Life, 1860-1862
Z0033309.jpg

Kazim ibn Najaf Ali

Pen Case, 1850-1875
RISDM 76-198 v_04.jpg

Simeon Hazard, cabinetmaker

Workbox, 1845
RISDM 73-169.jpg

Lewis Wickes Hine

Photograph, early 1900s
RISDM 80-099 v_03.jpg

Gorham Manufacturing Company, manufacturer

Athenic Cigar Box, 1901
57-181.jpg

American, Rhode Island

Covered Box, ca. 1900

More objects +

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