Blue-painted Corner Cupboard, New Hampshire, A Soulful Survivor

The arched and molded opening centering a molded panel with three shaped shelves and a shelf within base, above a hinged door featuring two fielded panels. The interior retaining original red paint in dry patina, else in very early robin's egg blue paint.

One day, sometime around 1750, a carpenter laid down his tools, the corner cupboard was finished. The cupboard was especially pretty. Its proportions, arched opening, detailed molding, and the raised paneled doors - producing an elegance not usually found in others of the period. It was painted blue/green. Those who studied the cupboard feel that it was built into the dining room of a house in southeastern New Hampshire. Like many things made by human hands, the cupboard eventually fell from fashion. If you were a merchant living a good life in the 1830s, you preferred heavy and important Empire furniture. Not many early painted cupboards survived the changing styles of the nineteenth century. The blue-green cupboard might have easily been wrecked, but it never was. Perhaps it survived because of its beauty. The cupboard did not arrive at the twentieth century in pristine condition. The corners had worn smooth from the touch of many hands. A hole (which someone had covered with tin) had appeared at the lower edge of its door, the result, apparently, of a determined animal. The moldings around its arched opening had once sprung loose, and whoever tacked them back failed to make the lines clean again; the piece had an unsettling look to some, however, to others it exudes soul... great character. One day in the mid-1960' s, Dick Wiggins and his son David discovered the cupboard in the kitchen of an old New Hampshire antiques dealer. The woman had probably rescued it during the 1920s, when Americans began to appreciate objects from their Colonial past. Though she had owned it for decades, the dealer was willing to part with the cupboard when she was offered what was a considerable sum then: about $500. It was an odd piece of furniture, worn and filled with mystery that suited the Wiggins's' taste. Dick and David thought they might keep the cupboard for themselves because it had looked so good in the old dealer's kitchen... obviously they eventually sold the cupboard.

We invite you to contact David for an enthusiastic conversation on this wonderful cupboard

Date: Mid-18th Century

Measurement: Height: 84.5"; width: 47"; depth: 18.5"

Material: Northeastern white pine

Condition: As survived... displays beautifully; original surface history, trivial imperfections, call to discuss the vestiges of time and storied history.

Provenance: Starting with Dick and David Wiggins, the cupboard began a four-decade journey passing through the hands of various antiques dealers who are now part of the cupboard's legacy. Bob and Dick Wiggins, Bill Putnam, Nan and David Gurley, Cory Daniels, Michael Winslow, Bill Mertsch, Hollis Brodrick, Susan and Emery Fletcher, Stephen Score, Rob Stuart... then to private collections.

SOLD