1881 Folk Art Child's Chest of Drawers
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GUEST:
In probably around 1980, my mother gave it to me.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And she had been given it to her by her grandfather, my great-grandfather, so... That was in the 1940s.
APPRAISER:
Had there been talk in the family that somebody in the family had made it?
GUEST:
Yes. The great-- we always thought the great-grandfather made it. But doing research, I found out that he was born in 1868, and if this was in 1881, then he could have only been 13. So we feel like that it was probably his father that made it. If-- that's, we, we're not sure, we... That's one reason we're here is to find out if it really is handmade.
APPRAISER:
It is very handmade.
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISER:
It's made out of walnut. It's got this great scallop backsplash with a shell on the top. And then all these inlays in bone, they just make it dance in front of your eyes. We look at the inlay and we think: This has pizzazz. In 1881, in Iowa, they would have been, what, in farm country?
GUEST:
Yes. My great-great-grandfather was a farmer.
APPRAISER:
Okay. I'm just supposing here. You'd have to do a DNA test to be positive, but it takes a big, flat piece of bone to make inlays like that, and my guess is they probably used cow bones.
GUEST:
Cow bone.
APPRAISER:
Because they would have been...
GUEST:
Plentiful.
APPRAISER:
They would have had a herd. The brown of the walnut wood doesn't overpower the inlay at all. The inlay is very powerful. And it looks to be all original. The pulls are original. Those are porcelain Victorian-era pulls that have a metal screw going through them, an iron screw. They were probably machine-made. And the date of this, obviously, is 1881.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And the cool thing about it is, it's a child size.
GUEST:
Hm.
APPRAISER:
You know, some people mistakenly refer to these as miniatures, but a miniature would be, like, this tall.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
This is a presentation piece made, I would say, for a child, probably for somebody very special in the family. And you guys have obviously treasured it.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Because of the condition. You know what amazes me the most? First of all, the feet aren't broken off. Second of all, it's never been refinished.
GUEST:
Nope, never has.
APPRAISER:
It has what I call "honest wear." It has places where it's got some abrasions. I mean, if you're almost 140 years old, you're going to have a few dents and scratches. But to a collector, that's perfect. We felt like, in a good retail setting, that this would sell for about $6,000.
GUEST:
Oh, I wasn't expecting that, but...
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
That's good.
APPRAISER:
Well, what were you expecting?
GUEST:
Maybe $500?
APPRAISER:
This is a very powerful folk art object. It's a great piece of American folk art.
GUEST:
Well, thank you very much.
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