By the 1870s affordable furniture produced in Midwestern factories was beginning to eclipse the handwork of local cabinet shops. Perhaps as a reaction to the increasing presence of homogeneous machine-made furniture, some late-nineteenth-century craftspeople created ornate and unusual furniture using the traditional techniques of marquetry, painting, fretwork, and carving. These special pieces were often made during the craftsperson’s leisure time and presented as gifts to family members or friends. They frequently feature some form of self-commemoration, in which the artisan incorporates his own name and often the location, date, and other personal information into the design.

George Robert Lawton
(b. Newport, Rhode Island, 1813–1885)
Chest of Drawers, 1870
Painted pine and maple
New Hope, Wisconsin
Lent by a private collection

Among the fanciful birds, animals and flowers that cover this elaborately painted chest of drawers, George Robert Lawton memorialized himself, his family and his Wisconsin home. The inscription “M R C Lawton” in the second circle of the first drawer most likely stands for Matilda R. C. Lawton, his granddaughter and the probable recipient of the chest. A self-portrait of Lawton on horseback appears on the fourth drawer, labeled “Mr. Artist.” Born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1813, Lawton came to Wisconsin in 1856 and was one of the founders of the town of New Hope, Portage County. Twenty years later he returned to Rhode Island where this chest and other works of painted furniture descended in his family.