Small Yellow Shaker Box
Maker
Unknown, American
Additional Title(s)
- Stack of Five Shaker Boxes
Collections
ClassificationsDECORATIVE ARTS
Dateca. 1840 - 1860
Mediumpine and maple on birch, yellow paint, copper points and tacks
Dimensions1 1/4 × 3 3/8 × 2 1/8 in. (3.2 × 8.6 × 5.4 cm.)
DescriptionOval box, rare small pine and maple on birch, yellow paint, copper points and tacks. (Extremely rare size.)
InscribedInscribed in pencil on the inside of the lid “Presented by Eld'r Grove Wright to Martha Johnson.”
Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Jonathan and Karin Fielding
Label TextWhile the Shakers designed many objects of simplicity, utility, and beauty, they are perhaps best known for their distinctive oval storage boxes secured with swallowtail "fingers," or laps. Oval box making began in the 1790s at the New Lebanon, New York, community (the Shaker's spiritual center) as one of the first Shaker industries, and survived well into the 20th century. While boxes were produced for use by the Shakers themselves, the vast majority were marketed and sold to outsiders, becoming one of the Shakers' most profitable commercial products. These five boxes, of standard graduated sizes, were designed when not in use to nest perfectly one inside the other. Though men and women lived separately in Shaker communities, they believed in gender equality; they also believed in celibacy, common property, and the second coming of Christ.Status
On viewObject number2016.25.46.5
Savonnerie Manufactory
1719/84; frame of later date (probably nineteenth-century).
Object number: 11.41
