EARLY ANTIQUE FOLK ART HAND PAINTED WOOD WEDDING TRUNK BLANKET CHEST DOVETAILED DATED 1868! Up for sale is this amazing hand painted trunk, blanket chest or mule chest. It’s a beautiful large chest with tons of character and that true folk art flavor. Many trunks that were highly decorated like this were wedding trunks but who can know? It has a hinged lid as you can see in the pictures. The trunk has an wonderful, dark brown black base color with reddish-orange, and faded yellow (tannish) highlighted accents in the folk art / floral painting. It looks like the flowers are tulips to us and there are reddish accents here and there. The paint appears to be all original and has nicks, chips and scrapes on it as you’d expect from and item of this age. You can also see the painted date on the front of 1868!! The top of the trunk is just plain with the exception of one very faint flower in the center. The lid has a lot of patina, scuffs and wear from things being on it and years of use. The front board of the top is likely newer and was replaced as the side boards of the top are fatter than the front board of the top. Under the trunk the legs are square and hold the trunk up off the ground. The legs have big wooden pegs that go through the bottom of the trunk and come up on the inside. They are about 1 in diameter. The legs are nicked, dinged and worn as you’d expect. There are also a number of old worm holes in the legs. There are not that many worm holes in the bottom board of the trunk which we thought was nicely surprising! Please look closely at the pictures and you can see all of this. On the front there’s an black iron escutcheon for the lock. You can see the lock on the pictures of the inside. We do not have the key and don’t know if the lock works. We do know that there’s nothing for the lock to grab hold of on the lid so having a key may not help things if you are trying to lock things up. There probably was an iron peg / shank that would come down and fit in the lock but it’s gone. Under the lid on the left side there’s a mouse hole where a little critter gnawed a hole to get in! Inside there is a little till on the left side. This was often used for small valuables and items so they did not get lost in the big trunk. The till has a hinged wood lid. This is not common as usually these little tills get broken or lost over time. There’s another mouse hole in the till on the vertical part of the right side under the lid toward the back. The trunk’s lid is held on to the back with old hinges. We don’t think these are original and you can see where there may have been other hinges at one point. The hinges have newer screws in them but still old, just not as old as the trunk. There are mouse holes, or wear at those two old hinge locations also. Just under the lid, on the front, there are a lot of little holes. Perhaps this had an upholstered top or something at one point as they look like little tack marks all along the top of the front board under the lid. The hand painting on the front and sides is a very colorful collection of flowers and organic motifs. The trunk is wonderfully hand painted. Inside, the trunk is clean but worn. There are old worm holes in the bottom and around the inside as you’d expect from an old item like this. The sides of the trunk as are dovetailed in to the front and back. There’s also some sort of swirls on the side in a very dark color and the color of the trunk. This is very hard to see because of the color. The dovetails are also hard to see but they are the thick kind. If you look closely in the black area you can see them. The back of the trunk is clean and has scrapes and nicks. And yes, it has a little critter hole down at the bottom! Whatever was in this trunk must have been very inviting to those dang critters!! The trunk has a wonderful patina to it. The trunk has some paint wear, paint loss, edge wear, nicks, scrapes, dings, fade, wear and overall age marks. There are spots, scuffs, streaks and grain lift. You can see all of this in the pictures and it’s what you’d expect from a trunk that’s almost 150 years old!! It’s a large size and measures. 48 inches wide at the top. 44.5 inches wide at the trunk. 20 3/4 inches deep at the top. 20 inches deep at the trunk. 2 1/2 inches high at the drawer. 18 1/2 inches deep inside the trunk. 50 x 29 x 25. We can also recommend a couple of shippers. This is a very nice trunk for those of you who love Primitives or folk art. It’s one of a kind! It would certainly make for an interesting conversation piece. Thank you for looking at this item. Let us know if you have any questions. We regularly put up new items so check out our other items. We will do our best to answer your questions. We will handle them on a case-by-case basis. We will do the same. We couldn’t sell anything if it wasn’t for you and the time you have taken to spend looking at our items. As a very small business we strive to keep you as our customer! We GUARANTEE that your item(s) will be received as described. We work hard to describe them correctly and in detail (note that the pictures are part of the description) with all flaws (if any) exposed. The item “EARLY ANTIQUE FOLK ART HAND PAINTED WEDDING TRUNK BLANKET CHEST DOVETAILED DATED” is in sale since Saturday, April 07, 2018. This item is in the category “Art\Folk Art & Indigenous Art”. The seller is “americas-place” and is located in Riverside, California. This item can’t be shipped, the buyer must pick up the item.
