The William K. du Pont Collection: Important Americana from Rocky Hill

The William K. du Pont Collection: Important Americana from Rocky Hill

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 531. Important Queen Anne Inlaid Walnut Schrank, Lancaster or Chester, Pennsylvania, Circa 1750.

Important Queen Anne Inlaid Walnut Schrank, Lancaster or Chester, Pennsylvania, Circa 1750

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Lot Details

Description

Important Queen Anne Inlaid Walnut Schrank

Lancaster or Chester, Pennsylvania

Circa 1750


Appears to retain a majority of its original wrought iron hardware. The feet, top central section of the cornice molding, and the key stone replaced.

Height 107 in. by Width 73 in. by Depth 21 in.

L.J. Gilbert & Sons Auctioneers, Sadsburysville, Pennsylvania, Early American Antiques: Private Collections of Meda Randall, Sadsburyville, PA & Blanche P. Irvine, Downingtown, Pa, October 14, 1936;

Joane Smith (Mrs. Richard Flanders), Lancaster, Pennsylvania;

Vernon Gunnion Antiques, Lancaster, Pennsylvania;

William K. du Pont, Newark, Delaware.

Vernon Gunnion, “The Pennsylvania-German Schrank,” Magazine Antiques, vol. 123, no. 5, (May 1983), 1022, Pl. I.
This bonnet top schrank is of substantial size, standing at nearly 9 feet high and 6 feet wide, and represents the work of a German-trained émigré craftsman from southeastern Pennsylvania. The architectonic form with its distinctive carved central pilaster reflects close ties to German precedents. Very similar twisted pilasters of flattened form are found on a German shrank owned by Fruher Sammlung L. Bernheimer Munchen and illustrated by Hermann Schmitz in Deutsche Mobel Des Barock und Rokoko (Stuttgart: Verlag Von Julius Hoffmann, 1923): p. 13. The inlays on this schrank display its maker’s training in traditional Continental marquetry, which utilizes scorching and line engraving to create detail and shading. This is particularly evident in the flowers and compass stars inlaid in the paneled doors. Several other German schranks with similar inlaid decoration, a bonnet top and broken pediment are illustrated by Hermann Schmitz and Otto Von Falke in Deutsche Mobel vom Mittelalter bis zum Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Verlag von Julius Hoffmann, 1924): 193-4.

Retaining a majority of its original wrought iron hardware, this schrank displays unusual pulls with pierced diamond-shaped back plates that are nearly identical to a pair of wrought iron pulls made in Chester County. The pulls are in the Titus C. Geesey Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and illustrated by Beatrice B. Garvan in The Pennsylvania German Collection (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982): no. 1, p. 91.