Bowfront chest of drawers; four full-length graduated drawers; contrasting stringing on drawers, top embellished with inlaid quarter-fans and border of mahogany veneer; Chippendale-style brass escutcheons and pulls with bail handles; quarter columns; molded base with bracket feet supported with glue blocks. New England, unknown maker; circa 1785-1810., 1785-1810. Digital
Dates
- Creation: 1785-1810.
Conditions Governing Access
The Dickinson Room and many of these objects can be viewed by guided tour Fridays at 2:00 p.m.
Examination of objects in the Houghton Reading Room requires advance notice, and the permission of the curator.
Extent
20 linear feet (68 items)Physical Facet
Cherry, mahogany veneer, pine (secondary wood), boxwood stringing;
Dimensions
height 89.5 cm., width 100.3 cm., depth 55.8 cm.
General note
The bottom drawer of this chest of drawers once held hundreds of Emily Dickinson's poems. Her sister Lavinia discovered them there after Emily's death. The chest was in the poet's bedchamber where she did much of her writing.
Repository Details
Part of the Houghton Library Repository
Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.
Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(617) 495-2440
Houghton_Library@harvard.edu