Thomas Dennis carvings, pt. 3
three chests and details
Back to the Thomas Dennis situation. The previous posts on this subject discuss the Irving P. Lyon articles from 1937-1938 that first identified Thomas Dennis as a significant joiner in 17th century Ipswich. (it’s just the first three that concern Thomas Dennis - the last few Lyon erroneously assigned most of the Essex County furniture to Dennis…)
His second article in the series drew in some joined chests that, while not directly descended through Thomas Dennis’ family, through their decoration and construction are clearly related to some degree to the first “batch” of objects. The first three of these chests consist of an excellent example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, another at the Wadsworth Atheneum, one at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I’ll start with the Met’s best of 3 examples they have:
The carving on this chest is lively, vibrant and exciting. All stupid adjectives to describe carving - but it’s among the best of the group. Here’s the middle panel - I imagine the only layout might have been a vertical centerline.
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