Dedham chest carvings

my layout ideas

half of a Dedham panel pattern

I’ve written a few posts about the joined chests that we call “Dedham” chests - based on some of them clearly having been made in Dedham, Massachusetts between 1650-1700. (there have been 3 posts on the subject so far, all this month…)

Tomorrow I’m doing a stint as guest lecture/demonstrator at North Bennet St School in Boston. https://www.instagram.com/nbssboston/?hl=en - I’ve done similar gigs there every so often, it’s always fun. Captive audience, you know. One of the things I chose to focus on is carving the panel designs used by those Dedham joiners - the reason is simple. As first-year students learning how to prepare drawings one of the pieces they draw is the chest at Wadsworth Atheneum that’s part of this group. Seemed a perfect fit given my recent review of that material.

First question is what is the layout? Some have used a template; either half or quarter of the pattern. That works, but it’s not how it was done in the 17th century. My interest has always been to try to understand how this stuff was made then. So - no template. In those earlier posts I mentioned the 1979 article by Robert Blair St. George about this group - it’s where I first learned about them. St. George had a detailed diagram of what he thought the layout was. It’s easy for me now to look back 40+ years later & pick apart that work - but I have the advantage of having 20 years of daily practice making this sort of stuff - so I got to test all kinds of crazy ideas (& a few sane ones.)

St. George’s diagram