Dresser
Type: Food preparationManufacturer
Jacob Sanders, Jacob L. SandersMaterial
woodDimensions
OH:85"; OW:50"; OD:20 1/2"Creation Date
1810 – 1830Description
Flat, rectangular top with broad curve molding; straight rectangular sides which extend forward below open section to accommodate closed cupboard; applied band of pierced lunettes with sawtooth lower edge across front and along sides below molding; open top section with three shelves with molded front edge; front of top section faced with scrolled frame with incised line running around inside edge; rectangular top of closed cupboard section extends beyond open cupboard with dovetailed sides at front; molded frame surrounds lower section at side and font; openings have molded edges; small straight band of molding below drawer; pair of large, rectangular doors each with central fielded panel and knob pulls; molded supported on four curved bracket feet; front and side aprons dip down at center; covered with original red stain and blue and white paint. Yellow pine.Research by June Lucas (Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts) strongly suggests that North Carolinian Jacob Sanders (ca. 1765-ca. 1817) or his son, carpenter Jacob L. Sanders (1799-1864), made this dresser. Histories of objects from the same shop are clustered in northern Montgomery County (where the Sanders family resided) and adjacent southern Randolph County. Other furniture from the shop includes the fragmentary upper section of a second dresser, a number of corner cupboards, a chest with drawer, and a kitchen press now in the MESDA collection (MESDA accession 2073-22). Most pieces in the group, including the CWF example, feature raised-panel doors, face-mounted ogee moldings that define and subdivide the facades, iron strap hinges set on pintles, straight bracket feet of various designs, and front aprons in the form of a long, obtuse angle. The objects are constructed primarily of yellow pine; many were colorfully painted when new. The body of the CWF dresser retains its original red stain, with the pierced lunettes in the frieze picked out in red, white, and blue, and the sawtooth molding below set off in white. All of the ogee facade moldings, the beveled edges of the door panels, and the base moldings are delineated with Prussian blue. The MESDA press is similarly decorated.
According to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755), a dresser was "The bench in a kitchen on which meat is drest or prepared for the table." Built-in or freestanding, dressers were also used to store cooking and eating utensils. Pots and pans were housed in the lower section, while the shallow upper shelves held plates, large dishes, and drinking vessels. The shelves of some examples were slotted to store flatware, while others provided drawers for that purpose. British furniture designer J. C. Loudon noted in 1833 that towels, table linens, dusters, and brushes were also stored in dresser drawers as well.
Decoration was another of the dresser's functions. The owner's best ceramic and metalwares could be displayed in the upper section, thus affirming the owner's taste and status. Graphics and documents, including a mid-eighteenth-century Englishman's reminder to his cook that "when you take down dishes, tip a dozen upon the dresser" confirm this custom. The North Carolina dresser illustrated here features several front-mounted plate rails that permit large dishes to "tip" forward, thus displaying their ornamentation while preventing dust from accumulating. A visitor to Ireland in the 1770s referred to the social value of such displays when he described a cottage dresser filled with objects, including "broken tea cups, wisely kept for shew." The uncommonly ornate stiles and rails that enframe the upper shelves of the CWF dresser further point to its important display function. Despite this appealing design, the bottommost rail must have interfered with the work space atop the lower section since both the rail and the lowest stage of the central stile were removed in the nineteenth century.
