{
"data": {
"id": 148728,
"accession_number": "1976.170",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Chest-on-Chest, c. 1800. America, Rhode Island, Providence, early 19th Century. Mahogany; overall: 235 x 108.6 x 62.3 cm (92 1/2 x 42 3/4 x 24 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Moselle Taylor Meals, 1976.170",
"current_location": "204 Colonial American",
"title": "Chest-on-Chest",
"creation_date": "c. 1800",
"creation_date_earliest": 1795,
"creation_date_latest": 1805,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"America, Rhode Island, Providence, early 19th Century"
],
"technique": "mahogany",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Decorative Art and Design",
"collection": "Furniture",
"type": "Furniture and woodwork",
"measurements": "Overall: 235 x 108.6 x 62.3 cm (92 1/2 x 42 3/4 x 24 1/2 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"overall": {
"height": 2.35,
"height_inch": 92,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 1.086,
"width_inch": 42,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.623,
"depth_inch": 24,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.5
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 302374,
"title": "Year in Review, 1976",
"description": "Year in Review, 1976. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 1-March 6, 1977).",
"opening_date": "1977-02-01T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 205330,
"title": "Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830",
"description": "Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (organizer) (August 19, 2016-January 8, 2017).",
"opening_date": "2016-08-19T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT (8/19/2016 \u2013 1/8/2017): \"Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830\"",
"opening_date": "2016-08-19T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Moselle Taylor Meals, Beachwood (purchased at auction in 1972).",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Advertised at auction by Florene Maine in 1969.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Sold by Honorable Mrs. C.D.L. Pepys, Newport and England.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "Inherited from Sophia Augusta Brown Sherman (Mrs. Watts Sherman), Newport and New York.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Block-fronted case furniture-that is, pieces with fa\u00e7ades that vary in the plane of their relief by extending forward at the sides and receding in the center-decorated with carved shell ornaments, has long been among the most admired of 18th-century American furniture. The sophisticated examples of such pieces were presumed to have been made in Newport, Rhode Island, particularly by members of the Townsend and Goddard families. However, recent scholarship convincingly hypothesizes that some of the finest pieces of this type of furniture were, in fact, made in Providence, Rhode Island-many of them, such as this chest, for members of the Brown family, inhabitants of that city. This piece was probably made for either Nicholas Brown (1729-1791) or, more likely, his son Nicholas Brown Jr. (1769-1841). The museum's chest-on-chest can be related stylistically and technically to other Providence pieces, but it is not yet clear who made them. Members of two cabinetmaking families, the Carliles and the Rawsons, are among the most likely candidates.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60759419"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1976.170-chest-on-chest"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Hawley, Henry H. \u201cA Townsend-Goddard Chest-on-Chest.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 64, no. 8 (October 1977): 276\u2013283.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 276-283, figs. 1, 3, 4",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25159544"
},
{
"citation": "Kane, Patricia E. Art & Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650-1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: P. 321, no. 63",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1976.170",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.170/1976.170_web.jpg",
"width": "596",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "242718",
"filename": "1976.170_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.170/1976.170_print.jpg",
"width": "2268",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3400043",
"filename": "1976.170_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1976.170/1976.170_full.tif",
"width": "3335",
"height": "5000",
"filesize": "50084500",
"filename": "1976.170_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Moselle Taylor Meals",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "Leigh and Mary Carter Gallery",
"athena_id": 148728,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1977-02-23T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1795,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1800",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:38:16.812000"
}
}