Cupboard
CultureAmerican
Date1700-1710
MediumGumwood
DimensionsOverall: 75 × 74 1/4 × 28 1/4 inches (190.5 × 188.6 × 71.76 cm)
Credit LineGift of Charles T. Thompson
Object number2008.21
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 211
Collections
DescriptionThe wooden cabinet has two vertical doors with concentric, rectangular, applied molding. In between and on each outer side of the two doors are vertical panels, divided by a horizontal molding piece into two panels, each with rectangular, applied molding. There are two shelves in the cabinet's interior. Below the two doors are two drawers with applied molding and round wooden knobs. There is applied molding in the shape of a diamond between and on either outer side of the drawers. The cabinet rests on two round, bun feet on the front and two block feet in the back. The top of the cabinet is crowned with a cornice composed of a series of moldings.Gallery LabelThis Dutch cupboard, known as a kast, (plural: kasten) was based on furniture designs brought by settlers from the Netherlands to America in the early 17th century. Dutch household guidebooks of this era have illustrations of women filling kasten with freshly pressed linens as well as other household valuables, and displaying costly decorative objects on the cupboards' tops.
These cabinets were mostly made in the Dutch settlement areas of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from the 17th to the early 19th century. In America, kasten were usually equipped with interior shelves on which the Colonists stored many types of handmade textiles such as linens, bedding, curtains and coverings for tables and chests.
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