Dedham box at Yale

[This post is another in a series about carved oak furniture from Dedham and Medfield Massachusetts. I’ve written at least 4 articles about the works from Dedham and Medfield - a little about the history of them and a lot about the carvings. When you open the full page of my blog posts there’s a search function there, type in “Dedham” and you’ll find all the entries. it looks like this at my end - I don’t know what it looks like at your end

There’s more of it than I remembered. Another reason I’m writing it all down.]

This past Friday I was back at the Yale University Art Gallery’s Furniture Study collection to do a half-day demo as part of their open house for the Yale community. It was, as expected, all kinds of fun. I took zero photos of the event - I was busy making noise and talking to people.

If you aren’t familiar with the Furniture Study - you might want to get familiar with it. Here’s the website https://artgallery.yale.edu/research-and-learning/resources/hume-american-furniture-study-center I swiped this photo off their website - it’s just a corner of the room full of furniture - giving you a glimpse of what it’s like

It’s a now-rare chance to see and examine period American furniture in detail. I love to roam the aisles in the collection, it’s amazing.

#1930.2260 Yale University Art Gallery

While I was there I took a quick look at a box I’ve long known, but had never seen the inside. I am now completely confident that it belongs to the Dedham/Medfield group that I’ve written about in this blog - previously I was 99% sure, now I have no doubts at all. There’s a box at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY that is clearly tied to the Dedham stuff - the scrolls on the Met’s box are nearly identical to those on the chests from the group. This one is slightly different - the “scrolls” are vertical instead of horizontal and the connecting “bands” that reach from top to bottom are now straight, instead of the most common reverse-curve shape - like the Met box:

Dedham box, MMA, #10.125.680