Painted poplar, oak and iron sugar bucket, Joseph John Lehn (1798-1892) Elizabeth Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, dated 1888

Inscribed on underside, ink on paper label: Made / by / Joseph Lehn/ in his 91/ year. Dec./16 1888

Descended in family
Gary Brooks and Michael Rizutto, York Springs, Pennsylvania, 1990
David A. Schorsch, New York, New York

"Folk Art Revealed," New York, American Folk Art Museum, November 16, 2004-August 23, 2009

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, pp. 176-7, fig. 144

In very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Joseph Long Lehn, a prolific maker of finely turned and paint-decorated woodenware table objects, coopered buckets, and small cabinetpieces, was born on January 6, 1798, in the farming community of Hammer Creek Valley in Elizabethtown Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Lehn was a farmer but supplemented his income with woodworking, using his skills as a lathe turner, cooper, and painter to produce a large variety of fancifully decorated domestic objects. A talented turner, Lehn is perhaps best known for his eggcups, covered saffron boxes, and small footed bowls ornamented with lively painted floral motifs on brightly colored blue, pink, or yellow ground colors which follow in their color and form earlier Continental traditions of small, highly decorated, turned-wood table objects.

The tight joinery and confidence of design and craftsmanship demonstrated by Lehn's decorated bucket also attest to his familiarity with the skills of the barrel maker or cooper. A large number of his open buckets and covered sugar buckets survive, all similar to the present example.¹ Of slightly tapering, cylindrical form, Lehn's sugar buckets are consistently constructed using eleven tapering oak staves to form the sides and tulip poplar for the turned lids and plank bottoms. The bottom plank is slightly raised and inset into a wedge-shaped, beveled groove cut into the inside face of each side member. The staves are assembled around this bottom board, and the slight inward bevels of their edges are secured side by side with three thin, sheet-iron riveted straps, each conjoined in slightly increasing diameters and slid over the assembled bucket's tapering exterior. The top is lathe turned, with concentric turned lines echoing the width of the metal side bands. Lehn apparently preferred to purchase the knobs for his covered buckets; the one on this example is mass-produced and typical of those found on other buckets and as drawer pulls on his small multidrawered spice cabinets. Lehn decorated his covered buckets, once assembled, with a salmon pink ground, onto which he brushed a darker red wash that was combed or figured in vertical diagonal bands. The trailing vines and floral buds decorating the metal joining bands and the bucket lids are also common across most of the known surviving examples attributed to his workshop. -J.L.L.

¹ Similar buckets attributed to Lehn are in the collections of PMA; Winterthur; The Lancaster Heritage Center, Lancaster, Pa.; and a number of private collections.