LOT # 55
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L55 ANTIQUE AMERICAN PAINTED PANTRY BOX PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH FOLK ART
Item Description
We are pleased to offer this Antique American 20th Century Bentwood Pantry Box with original painted surface in the manner of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Bentwood Construction with Pine top and Bottom. This is a fantastic example of a painted pantry box and would make a great addition to your collection or shop inventory. Some age appropriate wear, lid still fits well. Displays nicely. No matter how technologically advanced Americans have become in the years since the Mayflower first dropped anchor, one thing has consistently plagued housekeepers, critters in the pantry. Colonial women kept dairy products and grains well away from the cooking hearth, in small rooms called butteries. Like todays homemakers, they fought an ongoing battle to keep bugs and mice away from flour, sugar, and other dry comestibles whose storage posed a problem until the introduction of covered stoneware crocks and their even more expedient successor, the pantry box. Food storage boxes were imported from Europe until American factories began producing them during the late 18th century. Some were varnished plain wood, but many were painted in pretty colors that brightened a plain corner when stacked floor-to-ceiling. Even the Shakers, who shunned worldly excess, often finished their immaculately constructed by boxes in cheerful shades of blue, red, yellow, and green. Typically, pantry boxes were issued in nesting sets of graduated size, with the largest meant for storing slabs of cheese or butter, the smallest for pills or spices, and the in-between sizes for everything else. Each had a snug-fitting lid. Research Consulted: Wallace-Homestead, Price Guide to American Country Antiques, pg. 70; Collecting Americana by Matthew Bowye; The new and revised catalog of American Antiques by William C. Ketchum
Retail Value Estimate: $125-$175
Condition: age expceted wear Weight: 10oz
Measurements (LxWxH): 7 inches x 7 inches x 2.75 inches
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