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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;James Conrad, post: 832325, member: 5066&quot;]A &quot;sunflower&quot; (now believed to be a Marigold) chest is up for grabs this Saturday, I&#039;d say it&#039;s a period chest and it appears to be all there with the exception of the ebonized spindles/eggs and drawer pulls. For those not familiar with this form, a little background below.</p><p>The &quot;Sunflower&quot; school of joinery flourished in central Connecticut during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and over eighty five examples are known today bearing the signature floral carving (once thought to be sunflowers, but now described as marigolds or stylized rosettes) as seen on this chest&#039;s central panel. Chests without drawers and with one drawer, cupboards and boxes were all made by this school, but accounting for the vast majority of surviving forms is the two-drawer chest.</p><p>With its large number of surviving examples, innovative design and construction and widespread influence, the &quot;Sunflower&quot; school is one of the most significant groups of early American furniture. The earliest known example is a cupboard made for Rev. Joseph Rowlandson (1631-1678), who lost all his possessions in a Native American attack in Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1676 and moved to Wethersfield in 1677. He died there the following year, thus providing a 1677 or 1678 date for his &quot;Sunflower&quot; cupboard now at the Lancaster Public Library. Peter Blin (c.1640-1725), a French-speaking emigre, has long been associated with the production of &quot;Sunflower&quot; furniture as he arrived in Wethersfield in 1675, just prior to the production of the Rowlandson cupboard and his inventory included both joiner&#039;s and turner&#039;s tools, indicating he was able to make both the chests and their applied turned ornaments.</p><p>Furthermore, Robert F. Trent argues that the flowers are marigolds, which had symbolic references in seventeenth-century France, and thus likely part of the decorative vocabulary of a craftsman of French heritage. The Blin attribution remains conjectural as the large number of surviving chests, though remarkably consistent in ornament and construction, were undoubtedly made in several shops-perhaps concurrently or by apprentices emulating the practices of a master. In addition, two closely related but stylistically earlier chests with all-over carving and lacking applied ornament were made in Windsor, Connecticut. These chests are possible antecedents, which would indicate that the &quot;Sunflower&quot; tradition was locally born, rather than introduced by an immigrant such as Blin. Illustrating the breadth and depth of the influence of the &quot;Sunflower&quot; tradition, related designs and construction techniques appear on a number of Hartford County forms as well as a group of painted chests from the Connecticut coast.</p><p><a href="https://auctions.stairgalleries.com/lot/rare-connecticut-pine-and-oak-carved-hadley-blanket-chest-3955637" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://auctions.stairgalleries.com/lot/rare-connecticut-pine-and-oak-carved-hadley-blanket-chest-3955637" rel="nofollow">https://auctions.stairgalleries.com/lot/rare-connecticut-pine-and-oak-carved-hadley-blanket-chest-3955637</a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]194191[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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