Box
Artist unknown
1650–1700
Medium
Red oak and eastern white pine
Dimensions
24.8 × 63.5 × 45.7 cm (9 3/4 × 25 × 18 in.)
Classification
case furniture
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
56095
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The most common object in a colonial home, a small, lidded rectangular storage box would have held personal articles, such as household items, writing implements, or a Bible. They were decorated simply, usually only on the front, with stylized plants or vegetation and geometric lines. The Art Institute's box is segmented by an upper band of intersecting lunettes with intervening foliate leaves and a lower border with repeating floral S-scrolls. The initials "M P," carved in the center of the box...