Philadelphia Triple Chest

 

Accession #: 1932.45.101 abc
Date: c. 1735–1745
Owner: PMA
Artist: Unknown
Materials: Wood (cherry, hard pine, white cedar); copper alloy (brass)
Dimensions: 6 feet 1/4 inches × 41 1/8 inches × 22 1/2 inches (183.5 × 104.5 × 57.2 cm)

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This chest-on-chest-on-chest consists of three separate chests with three drawers each. The three chests are stacked on one another. The lowest chest sits on shaped bracket feet. The primary wood is cherry, and the secondary woods are estimated by visual inspection to be hard pine and white cedar.

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According to inscriptions on the chest, it belonged to Elizabeth Coates Paschall and descended at Cedar Grove in the Morris/Paschall family. Cedar Grove, the family's summer home, was built in 1748 in northeast Philadelphia by Paschall, a wealthy dry goods merchant and one of the earliest female practitioners in both homeopathy and botanical sciences. The house and contents were donated to the City of Philadelphia in 1926, and the house was taken apart and reconstructed in Fairmount Park, where it was opened in 1928 as a house museum administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

 

Before treatment, the chest was generally structurally stable with normal signs of age and wear, including repairs and refinishing. A roof leak at Cedar Grove in 2019 damaged the finishes and surfaces of the top, the proper right case side, and the proper right side of the case front. The primary purpose of this treatment was to compensate for finish loss and damage caused by this water event.

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View examination and treatment report HERE

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View summary of historical research HERE