AFA 18th Anniversary

Antiques & Fine Art 155 2018 previous page Ammi Phillips (American, 1788–1865), pair of portraits of a man and woman, members of the Van Keuren family, ca. 1825–1830. Oil on canvas, frames: H. 35, W. 29½, D. 3 in. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Gifts of Jonathan and Karin Fielding. The Van Keurens were a large and prosperous family of Dutch origin who settled in Ulster County, New York, in the seventeenth century. By the nineteenth century they were wealthy landowners, some of whom owned slaves (full emancipation for slaves in New York did not occur until 1827). As members of the rural aristocracy, the Van Keurens commissioned portraits as emblems of their status, as well as to memorialize themselves for future generations. The prolific portrait painter Ammi Phillips traveled through western Connecticut and Massachusetts before moving to Rhinebeck, New York, directly across the Hudson River from Ulster County. His clear and forthright style, with plain backgrounds and expressively articulated figures, would have appealed to families like the Van Keurens. This eye-catching blanket chest illustrates the early nineteenth-century “high style” found in rural Vermont. The faux-grain painting in various hues simulates expensive wood veneers fashionable on federal furniture of the period. The chest stands on high tapered feet and features an elegantly simple carved skirt. Glass pulls adorn the lower single drawer, while the upper blanket chest has a lift top. This chest belongs to a group of Shaftsbury, Vermont, chests with identical construction and similar painting in yellow, green, red, and brown. This group has become associated with Thomas Matteson, a denizen of Shaftsbury; it remains unclear whether Matteson was the owner or maker of two examples in the group inscribed with his name. Such extravagantly painted furniture illustrates the aspirations of everyday Americans to outfit their home with fine furnishings of manifest beauty. Grain-painted “Matteson” blanket chest, unknown maker, ca. 1820–1825. Pine, paint, and glass. H. 36, W. 40¾, D. 18 in. Jonathan and Karin Fielding collection.