Images(11)

Grisaille Painted Kast

Periodca. 1720

MediumRed gum, American tulip, and hard pine (identified by microanalysis at Winterthur in 1977)

Dimensions69.5 × 62.75 × 24.5 in. (176.5 × 159.4 × 62.2 cm)

InscribedCarved into the inside of the left door are the initials "A A" and a crossed "I."

ClassificationsStorage Furniture

Credit LineGift of John P. and Alfred G. Luyster, 1931

Object number1986.511

DescriptionAn unusually small-sized kas in two parts. The upper section includes a molded cornice above a cupboard section of board construction with dovetailed corners and plain stiles. The center stile is not architectural but is attached to the right door. All three stiles are ornamented with top, medial, and bottom horizontal glyphs.Two side hung doors include applied moldings to create the appearance of rectangular panels. The doors open to reveal two fixed board shelves.The medial shelf retains a pair of cleats mounted to the underside for a small storage drawer, now missing. The kas's base, also of board construction with dovetailed corners, includes a single full-width side hung drawer with applied molding creating the illusion of two smaller drawers and fitted with a pair of turned wooden pulls. Applied molding along the front and sides of the lower portion disguise the seam between the cupboard and base. An applied base molding runs above two turned front ball feet and two bracket board rear feet. The entire kas is decoratively painted in grisaille (gray and white). Portions of the cornice, moldings, glyphs, and front ball feet are painted black. A band of foliate scrollwork runs along the top portion of the cornice above narrow bunches of fruit. On the stiles, bunches of fruit hang from ribbon bows. Both doors are painted with arched niches featuring pomegranates, grapes, and other fruit hanging from ribbon bows. At the top of each door a florid letter "A" is flanked by small fruit and leaf clusters. On both side panels, similar fruit bunches, also with pomegranate centers, hang from ribbon bows. On the kas's lower section, the false drawer fronts are painted with small fruit clusters flanked by leafy sprays, and large single sunflowers are painted in the drawer center and at the left and right corners. Small bunches of fruit and foliage adorn the side panels of the lower section.
Curatorial RemarksThe kast represents a purely Dutch furniture form brought to New York and New Jersey in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It provided storage space for linens, clothing, valuables such as porcelain or silver, jugs and bottles, or in at least one Monmouth County instance, an old saddle and sword (see accession number 1982.412). Contemporary prints show that large ceramic bowls or vases were often placed on top of a kast for decoration. Most were made of hardwood and paneled with applied decoration. Only nine American kasten survive that were painted in the baroque manner using gray, white, and black pigment in a technique called grisaille. These kasten were the result of collaborations between woodworkers and painters, as proven by variations in construction among the five that are painted by this same unidentified hand. In motif, style, and execution of its decoration, the Luyster kast matches two others most closely, one in the collection of the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, and another owned by the National Society of Colonial Dames of the State of New York that is on view at the Van Cortland House museum in the Bronx. The sophisticated paint decoration on these three kasten and the similarity of certain details of their construction to high style Dutch work suggest that they were in all probability made in New York City. All of the grisaille painted kasten share the same basic vocabulary of ornament, including swags and ribbons, festoons of fruit and foliage, paired birds, and niches. Skillful handling of the monochromatic paint creates an illusion of depth and is meant to imitate carved stone. On each door niche is depicted drapery and hanging bundles of pomegranates, grapes and other fruits. Only the Luyster kast incorporates initials into the decoration. In contrast to their elaborate decoration, the cabinetwork on the cases of this group of kasten consists of simple board construction, and in the case of the Luyster kast, several boards contain knots that the woodworker knew would later be covered by paint. Substantial turned feet and a large cornice molding contribute to the impressive proportion of this kast, which sensibly breaks down into two pieces above the drawer so that it can be moved more easily. The Luyster kast underwent extensive conservation in 1999. For further information on the entire group of grisaille painted kasten, see Peter M. Kenny, Frances Gruber Safford, and Gilbert T. Vincent, American Kasten: The Dutch-Style Cupboards of New York and New Jersey, 1650 - 1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), 28 - 32, and 44 - 45. See also Patricia Chapin O'Donnell, "Grisaille Decorated Kasten of New York" in The Magazine Antiques, May 1980, 1108 - 1111.NotesA Luyster family tradition recounted that the extraordinary painted kast was made for a woman named Antje Aumack, hence the two letters A painted above the panels on the two doors. The early records of Old Brick Reformed Church of Marlboro, Monmouth County, mention an Anna Katrina Amak, who was a member of the congregation in 1723. She apparently married first to Teunis Van Pelt, and second to Teunis Swart. A notation next to her name reads "vertrocken," the Dutch word for departed. Extensive genealogical research on the Luysters carried out over four decades has failed to identify an Antje Aumack directly associated with the family. Nonetheless, the kast has a long history of ownership in the family of Johannes Luyster (1691 - 1756), who in 1717 purchased several tracts of land in Monmouth County with his brother in law Jan Brower. Luyster and his wife Lucretia Brower (1688 - 1771), whom he had married in 1716, relocated to Middletown shortly after. Their son Pieter (1719 - 1810) succeeded to ownership of the family farm. In 1756, he married his first cousin Antje Luyster (1726 - 1799), a daughter of Pieter Luyster (1687 - 1759) and Sarah Rappalye (1687 - 1733) of Newtown, Long Island. It is possible that the kast was made for Antje, and brought with her to the Luyster residence in what became known as the Holland section of Middletown, along with other Rappalye heirlooms. If that is the case, then the kast descended in the family as follows: to Pieter and Antje's son Johannes P. Luyster (1763 - 1848); to his son Peter Luyster (1806 - 1875); then to his two daughters Emma Luyster Johnson (1835 - 1921) and Catherine Dewitt Luyster (1838 - 1922). A photograph taken on 11 May 1886 by Edward Taylor (1848 - 1911) of Middletown shows the two women standing before their house, an outstanding example of early Dutch buildling in Monmouth County dating from shortly after 1717 and enlarged a few years later. Emma and Stephen Johnson worked the farm after the death of Peter Luyster. They lived in the ancestral homestead with her single sister Catherine until 1906, when the three of them removed to a modern house in Middletown village and turned the Holland Road property over to their nephew John P. Luyster (1874 - 1957). The sisters took many family heirlooms with them to their new home, including the painted kast. Following their deaths in 1921 and 1922 respectively, ownership of it passed to their two nephews and executors, John P. and his brother Alfred G. Luyster (1881 - 1958). Neither of them had room in their homes for the kast, so it was put in storage until 1931. In October of that year, John and Alfred placed the kast and an accompanying painted hanging cupboard dated 1722 (see accession number 1985.533) on display in the new museum of the Association in Freehold. They were part of the inaugural exhibits in the second floor Freehold Gallery when the building first opened to the public on 20 October 1931. The two exceptional painted pieces remained on view there until 1936, when Marlpit Hall, a restored historic house in Middletown village, was presented to the Association by Mrs. J. Amory Haskell. The kast and hanging cupboard were accordingly transferred to that house museum, where they have formed part of the furnishings there for most of the eighty some years since. By the early twentieth century, the Luyster House had become a focus of antiquarian curiosity because of the quantity and quality of the many ancestral heirlooms of every sort that it contained. Several rooms were furnished entirely with historic objects large and small, many dating back to the early eighteenth century and earlier. In May of 1930, thirty-five members of the Holland Society of New York visited the house. The week previous to their pilgrimage, the Red Bank Register ran a nearly full page article on 14 May describing in detail what the visitors would see. The writer commented on the astounding array of furniture, silver, documents, ceramics, pewter, books in Dutch, fire arms, glassware, and a host of other relics of olden times. Many treasured items were brought to the house especially for the Holland Society visit by John Luyster's two brothers, Alfred G. and James B. Finally in 1943, John and Marguerite Conover Luyster decided to retire to a new home in Keyport. So on 2 October of that year, a major auction took place at the ancient Luyster homestead. One small late seventeenth century silver spoon made in New York City by Jacobus Boelen sold for $450 to a New York collector. Other items quickly made their way into such distinguished institutions as the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, where a carved box and Japanned mirror with their Luyster history intact remain today. A tankard, the silver spoon, and an elaborately carved cow horn shoehorn were illustrated in An Album of New Netherland by Maude Esther Dilliard (New York: Bramhall House, 1963), numbers 112, 121, and 135. Silver, furniture and other items from the Luyster sale continue to be owned privately in New Jersey and elsewhere. In 1998, the Luyster House, then faced with demolition, was relocated from Holland Road to a new site in Middletown village.

Collections