SHAKER UPDATE

Just returned from a gathering trip last weekend where we picked up Shaker and Americana from three separate collections.

Shaker was highlighted with a spectacular stand w/ drawer in tiger maple.  This I feel is one of the top ten pieces of Shaker that we will ever have offered at auction. More information will be forth coming as we do more research.

Needless to say we are extremely excited to be able to have this classic museum quality Shaker antique for our next Shaker Auction.

In the same home we discovered one of the best example of Shaker spit boxes we have ever seen.   Its chrome yellow finish is almost as bright as the day it was made.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this form, it is a round open box originally filled with wood shavings and sawdust and used for tobacco spittle (like a spittoon) in the 1830s/40s when the Shakers were told to quit smoking their clay pipes.  It’s a classic form made with three fingers. 

The color and condition of this particular example is outstanding and will be the first item offered at our Shaker Auction.

In another collection from New Jersey we found a rare TINY Shaker sampler measuring 2.75 inches in height and 3.75 inches in length.  As we just picked this up this past weekend we haven’t had time to do the research and discover who “Jesse Patte (n?)” is or where she was schooled in which Shaker community.  We may not be able to discover this as Jesse may not have signed the covenant and become a Shaker.  Hopefully we will find her.

From The Rathbun Gallery:

Capt. Asa Pattee held the first Shaker meeting in New Hampshire at his home sometime in Sept. 1782 on Jones Hill, later called Shaker Hill on the North side of Lake Mascomy.  Capt. Pattee was an early settler of the town of Enfield and along with James Jewett, Ezekiel Stevens, Benjamin Merrill (Morrill), Nathaniel Barker, John Lyons, and Nathaniel Draper, all continuing to live in their own homesteads, initially formed the Enfield Shaker Society.  It wasn’t until 10 years later, that the Meeting House (1793) was framed.