SALTONSTALL-LYMAN FAMILY PILGRIM CENTURY TURNED AND JOINED OAK, MAPLE AND PINE COURT CUPBOARD, PROBABLY PLYMOUTH COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS, CIRCA 1680

Bears number 57.163.  Upper section rebuilt, feet replaced.

Descended in the Saltonstall and Lyman Families, Plymouth and Boston, Massachusetts;
Israel Sack Inc., Boston, Massachusetts;
John Kenneth Bayard, Norwalk, Connecticut;
Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, Massachusetts;
Sotheby's, New York, January 2007, sale 8278, lot 255;
Jonathan Trace, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Dean A. Fales, Jr. The Furniture of Historic Deerfield, (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co. Inc., 1976), p. 249, no. 488;
Elizabeth Stillinger, Historic Deerfield: A Portrait of Early America, (New York: Dutton Studio Books, 1992), p. 104, no. 39.

With restorations.
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.

The cupboard, a wholly architectonic form, was the supreme achievement of late seventeenth century joinery and the prized possession of the family for which it was made.  As E. McClung Fleming has noted, cupboards of this stature not only identified the wealth and status of their respective owners, but also were quite functional for storage and display of other cherished household objects.  They were viewed as “vehicles of delight” and affirmed their owner’s ties to England.¹

The Saltonstall-Lyman Family cupboard was made in the Plymouth County region of Massachusetts.  It shares many of the hallmark characteristics of Plymouth County joinery.  Most notably is the use of lipped tenon drawer rails with a projecting series of moldings embellished with serrated and/or double notch gouge-line decoration.  Several chests with drawers and tables also survive with the same decoration.  Common among the chests and cupboards is the amazing degree of detail and refinement of the joinery.  In particular, the backs of these pieces received nearly the same measure of planning and chamfering as that of the fronts.

The applied half-columns adjacent to the drawers in the lower case are identical to those present on cupboards at Winterthur, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.²  Two have histories from the Tracy and Alden families of Duxbury, MA.  A fourth cupboard (Wadsworth Atheneum) descended in the Howes family of Yarmouth and Dennis but was likely made in Plymouth County.³  Deerfield’s cupboard may have been made for the Rev. Rowland Cotton (1667-1722) of Plymouth, Massachusetts and Elizabeth Saltonstall (1668-1726).  They were married in Sandwich, Massachusetts, September 1689.⁴

¹ E. McClung Fleming, “Artifact Study: A Proposed Model,” in Winterthur Portfolio 9, ed. Ian M.G. Quimby (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1974), pp. 153-73.
² Robert Blair St. George, The Wrought Covenant: Source Material for the Study of Craftsmen and Community in Southeastern New England, 1620-1700, (Brockton, MA: Brockton Art Center/Fuller Museum, 1979), pp. 44-5, nos. 35, 36, Helen Comstock, American Furniture: Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Century Styles, (Atglen, PA, Schiffer Pub. Ltd., 1962), p. 48, no. 77.
³ St. George, pp. 44-5 and 55, nos. 35, 36, and 59.
⁴ For additional information on joined cupboards, see Gerald Ward, “Some Thoughts on Connecticut Cupboards and Other Case Furniture” in Old-Time New England: New England Furniture, vol. 72, (Boston: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, 1987), pp. 66-87.