the MFA cupboard project, c. 2009-2010

a look at the Woburn/Concord box, chest & cupboards

Thanks to all who wrote in for the cupboard door giveaway. If your name is Felton Bohannan you won, if it’s not, thanks for “playing.” Here’s some background on that project, it’s hard for me to believe it’s 14 years ago already. Where did that time go?

the starting point is this cupboard lower case that the MFA acquired about 1990 or so. You could mistake it for a chest of drawers, but it has patched holes in the top where the upper case’s pillars tenoned into it.

MFA cupboard lower case, #1990.337

It’s part of a group of objects seemingly all by one maker/shop - a cupboard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, a box at Winterthur and a chest with drawers at the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts. Their histories indicate they were made around Woburn or Concord, Massachusetts. The box at Winterthur is dated 1698.

Carving, applied turnings and moldings and decorative painting account for a varied decorative scheme. The goal with my repro-conjectural upper case was to give an idea of what this might look like when it was new. My friend Marie got a good shot of the finished installation (it’s displayed behind glass) - as she says, complete with her self-portrait.

PF upper case installed at the MFA