 Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's edition of Barn's Takeout, your daily serving of art from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. I'm Bill Perthes, the Bernhardt C. Watson Director of Adult Education at the Barnes Foundation, and my colleagues and I are taking some time each day to share some of the objects and paintings that we're particularly interested in in the collection and saying something about them sharing our observations with you. Today I'm talking not about a painting as I have in the past, but instead about one of the Pennsylvania German chests that are in the collection, one of dozens of chests that are part of the collection. It's the chest that you see here and here it is, and the ensemble in which it's placed. So this is gallery 13, and we're facing north. You'll see that the chest is part of the anchor of this ensemble, so the objects in the center. And on this ensemble, so the collection of objects on a given wall are called ensembles. You'll see that not only is it the chest, but on the chest are two plates as well as a vase created by Jean Renoir, the son of the painter here, Auguste Renoir, whose paintings are above it, the two paintings above it, also represented on this ensemble are works by Paul Cézanne, Edward Manet, and Vincent van Gogh, along with other objects including metal work and furniture and irons. But I'm interested in us looking at this Pennsylvania German chest, and just to clarify why I'm calling it that, I know it's often described as Pennsylvania Dutch, but the immigrants who made this did not come from the Netherlands, but instead came from Germany. The term Pennsylvania Dutch comes from a kind of mishearing of Deutsch, which is German for German. Deutschland is Germany, and the German immigrants made up a large population and a growing population in Pennsylvania, particularly in Philadelphia and Southeast Pennsylvania and Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. There's an area of Philadelphia, as some of you may know, called Germantown, which was a large settlement of German immigrants, and when the German immigrants came over in the beginning part of the 18th century and through the 19th and into the 20th century, a large influx of German immigrants, they brought with them both objects as well as designed for household objects, perhaps the most common of which is the chest. So this object would likely have been probably the primary piece of furniture, certainly in a given room, and perhaps even within a house. The kinds of things that would have been stored in this chest would have been a wide range of things, from clothes to linens, other personal items, as well as potentially things that were of some value. You'll notice that on the face of this chest, there's an opening at the top near the lip of the lid where there's a lock, and the center drawer also has a lock on it, so valuable things could have been stored in it, and then locked for safe keeping. So part of the reason that I chose this chest is, first it's one of the chests, the maker of whom we know, or at least we think we know, it's attributed to John Bieber, and that Bieber, that name sounds familiar, I can't quite place where we might know that today, but it's a long familiar German name, and not only that, this is one of two chests attributed to John Bieber or to the Bieber family. This was a family of craftsmen that worked in Berks and Lehigh County, just north of Philadelphia, where we are, but also that it's a remarkably and elaborately decorated chest. So this chest, in terms of its carpenter construction, is fairly simple, so it's called a chest over drawers, because it is literally that, at the bottom you'll see that there are three functioning drawers, above it is a chest with a hinged lid, and in a second I'm going to give you a peek inside. So the construction is fairly simple, but the way that it has been decorated is really quite elaborate and quite remarkable. Much of the design on the chest would have been created, much of the detail of the design on the chest would have been created with a carpenter's compass, sort of like a protractor, that would have allowed the carpenter, the painter, carpenter painter, to create these really elaborate designs on it. The heart shape that you see flanking the center, pillard arch, is a design also that's very closely associated with Lehigh and Berks County, it's another way that we can more firmly locate the origin of the chest, even though it's not signed by its maker. But something we do know about it is the individual for whom it was made, as well as the date that it was made. So on the pillard arch we see the name of the individual for whom it was made, Michael Fink, F-I-N-K, and the year 1789. And that also puts us right in the time frame that John Bieber was creating, Bieber's dates were 1763 to 1825. What makes the design on this chest so striking is how complex and elaborate it is. So for instance, if we look at details such as the hearts, it's not only the design of the hearts, which is a familiar design, but within that we have these circled medallions and then these pinwheel designs. And each of these pinwheels, does each of these designs actually, both the medallion itself as well as the pinwheel design, would have been made by way of a compass or that protractor. So the carpenter painter was very skilled at adapting the very simple technique of a circle or a portion of a circle to create elaborate designs. That's how he would have set out the heart. It's also how he would have set out this chain design that we see running along the top as well as down the side. And if you look at the chain design, notice how care was put so that the portions, the half circles of those interweave with each other. So some go on top, some go underneath. You'll notice that as they come down from the top, each one comes between the V shape of the bottom one. And that it's not merely a single line, but a double line that gives it gives the design some depth. And we see that interest in a double design throughout the throughout the design on the chest. In addition, not only do we have the linear patterns, but then we have the color patterns. So you'll notice that a sponge technique was used throughout in fields of both red as well as black. And that adds variety to it. And you'll notice that even within that, the sponge technique is varied. So for instance, the sponge technique that was used on the red field is different from the sponge technique that was used on the black field. So again, sort of compounding the complexity of the decoration. And if we look at the drawer, notice that again, such care in detail was taken. So we have the face of the drawer with its complex design on it. But then the drawer has a molded edge to it. And that the edge of the drawer was painted a contrasting color that the same color that's used on the sponge design on the face of the drawer is used on the face of the chest itself, but in a solid field. So again, these contrasts of color or design, and then little sort of points such as the eased corners that give it a less sort of harsh look. And then the inclusion of these little tulip designs in the corners of each of the corners of the drawer. Again, adding a added layer of design. And that tulip design echoing the design of the tulip in the arched column center. I promised I would show you some of the interior. So here, one of our preparators and I worked together to look inside. You'll see some of the really fine details inside. The top, which is more than 52 inches long and 30 inches deep, is made up of two boards. The board at the top of the image here is a remarkably wide board. This chest is made out of pine. This is the size of board that would be very difficult to find today, but was quite common back in the 18th century as they were felling still virgin pine forests. And you'll notice that the way that those two boards were joined together were with these butterfly joints, these very delicate and decorative butterfly joints. And that the top is hinged to the back with these long strap hinges. And that inside, there's the top of the chest, that inside there's a little box with a hinged lid. And what I like about this picture is you can see on the inside of the top of the chest that scratch, that curved scratch, where the lid of the interior box was opened and was usually used to help hold the top of the chest open. So it would, with the lid of this interior box open, it would support the top of the chest to keep it open so that the individual could get things in and out of it. And that interior box would have been a place where sort of small items could have been stored. Going back to the overall chest, one of the things that Barnes, our founder Albert Barnes particularly appreciated in these objects were the fact that they were things that were used every day. And the top of the chest, as you saw in the previous image, is well worn so that we see little of the design left. And that's something that Barnes would have really appreciated, that this box, this chest rather really shows the usefulness, the utilitarian nature of the object, but that it's an object that was used daily, that was an essential part of a household, but that had been invested with such remarkable decorative designs on its exterior. So I hope the next time you come to the Barnes Foundation, you look at the Pennsylvania German chests in the collection. They're sometimes overlooked because of the remarkable collection of paintings that we have, but it's really an outstanding collection of Pennsylvania German chests. So I want to thank you for watching today. As I said at the top, I want to encourage you to subscribe to these takeouts to get them in your inbox each weekday. I would also like to encourage you to leave comments below here. We really like to hear from our viewers. And I hope you'll watch again in an upcoming episode. Thank you. Take care.