Susan Fuller Albright, Lancaster, Massachusetts

Private collection, New York

Acquired from the above by the present owner

D. Stocks, J.V. Grant, T. Conran, Shaker: Function, Purity, Perfection. New York: Assouline, 2014, back cover, p.38.

This cupboard over drawers is one of those Shaker pieces made for a specific purpose, to hold a particular type of material, but both purpose and material are undocumented. Each of the drawers shows evidence of having had at least three different labels fixed to it with small tacks. The piece very well may have had several different uses over the years.

The yellow color is striking, and the piece is unusual in that its back was painted. Although the back is made of simple horizontal planks, as was true of most pieces intended to stand against a wall, the fact that it was painted may suggest that the cupboard was installed away from a wall and that it was important that the back look more finished.

This cupboard has the numerals 1 through 20 stamped both on the top of the center of each drawer and on the rail above each corresponding drawer. Since the drawers show evidence that they once had labels fixed to the front, it appears that these numbers were stamped to keep track of which drawer went in each opening rather than providing an indexing number to use in identifying the drawers' contents. Drawers in many Shaker pieces are similarly numbered, but usually in pencil or crayon on the interior of the drawer and the inside of the case. It is apparent that the stamping was done at a later date, since drawer number 8 (second row, far right) has a lock but lacks a corresponding hole for receiving the lock in the case. The hole for the locking mechanism to fit into is in the bottom of the rail above the drawer numbered 4