Folk Art of Britain & Ireland »
Furniture » Rare Antique Pine Irish Dresser in Original Paint
Ref: 3610
This is a piece that I have heard about from dealers in Northern Ireland for a few years and I was lucky enough eventually for it to come our way.
It is a piece that is good enough to be subject of gossip amongst the trade owing to it's being such a lovely form of dresser and in unimaginably good condition.
It is what is normally called a "fiddlefront" dresser which refers to the open base with decorative cut out or silhouette forms. This is a rustic title applied to Irish dressers of this form and if I resist calling it such it is because the shaped base actually describes the silhouette of an urn or vase and so indicates an imitation of classical decorative forms and not any kind of reference to a "fiddle". Similar forms of open dressers are found from England and Scotland in the 18th century and it is taken for granted that their form derives from the repertoire of antique motif with no reference to fiddles. Having acknowledged that it may be nevertheless fitting to find a separate and somewhat folky term for the Irish version of this dresser as typically in period Irish country furniture at its best (as here) there is a certain "elan" in the interpretation, a natural art of the maker to re-imagine the formal with a warm and indigenous expressivity.
This one if you look is no plain example it has a joyful line & some nice detailing marking it out as made by a knowing craftsman and it is similar in this respect to one in the Roscrea Heritage Centre in County Tipperary. The fretwork frieze with clover leaf might indicate Galway too but the piece apparently came from Antrim and has been described by another Irish dealer as a lovely example of an Ulster dresser. It is hard therefore to be precise on origins but the experts will know.
Other exceptional things to note about this dresser is its having backboards and base to the lower section which is nice and not always present. This open base would have stored pails of milk and spring water and the like. The shelves would have held crockery and all sorts and there is a full set of hooks along the top for cups. Unusually the sledge feet remain - these are an early feature retained in some Irish dressers to enable them to stand firm and not topple forward on earth floors - also exceptional is the colour - normally Irish dressers have layers and layers of paint which eventually conceals the carving whereas this one has just the one original red terracotta colour. There is no rot or worm at all - it is in remarkable preservation - when it came in it had small flaky fronds or lichen in places cleaving to the paint work and one imagines it must have been in a dry place and not moved from there for a very long time.
Co. Antrim c.1780-1820
H: 196cm (77.2in)
W: 165cm (65.0in)
D: 48cm (18.9in)
SOLD
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