Images(3)

Hanging Cupboard

Period1722

MediumPainted oak with yellow pine shelves and bottom board, the latter determined by microanalysis

Dimensions17.75 × 17.5 × 10.5 in. (45.1 × 44.5 × 26.7 cm)

InscribedThe initials "GVR" are painted on the lower right front panel of the cupboard, below the bottom hinge.

ClassificationsStorage Furniture

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

Object number1985.533

DescriptionThis small hanging cupboard features a single board door with original butterfly iron hinges and a small wooden closure knob in the lower left corner. A thick applied molding runs across the top of the front and sides. The backboard includes a small rectangular tab projecting above the case with a central hanging hole. Cutouts in the bottom four corners resemble feet. The cabinet door has been ornamented with an elaborate painted scene featuring a red heart flanked by a pair of hands beneath a gold crown bordered by clouds in shades of white, red, and yellow. The date 1722 appears above the crown. The decoration surrounding the door and on the sides consists of a painted ground of dark brown overlaid with red in circular patterns, perhaps in imitation of tortoise shell.
Curatorial RemarksInitially the painted decoration on the cupboard door was puzzling since the crown, heart, and hands suggested a Catholic theme not in keeping with the anti-Catholic sentiments of most Dutch. However, the discovery of a brass tobacco box in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York engraved with a rebus for "a true heart is a crown of gold" provided the meaning. The construction of the cupboard is of carpenter quality. Its form, with cutout and shaped feet, is similar to a type of simple Hudson Valley Dutch kast which dates from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The earliest examples have the same kind of butterfly hinges. The quality of the painted decoration suggests the hand of an experienced artist or decorator, perhaps from New York. So far, the initials "GVR" in paint below the bottom hinge have not been identified. The V and R are conjoined.NotesThe painted hanging cupboard may have been part of the furnishings brought to Monmouth County from New York by Johannes Luyster (1691 - 1756) and his wife Lucretia Brower (1688 - 1771), who were married in 1716. Luyster and his brother in law Jan Brower purchased several tracts of land in Middletown in 1717, moving there by the following year. The cupboard is dated 1722, about the time that the Luysters enlarged their house in what became known as the Holland section of Middletown. The probable line of descent follows: from Johannes to his son Pieter Luyster (1719 - 1810); to his son Johannes P. Luyster (1763 - 1848); to his son Peter Luyster (1806 - 1875); to his son Garret S. Luyster (1843 - 1923), to his sons John P. Luyster (1874 - 1957) and Alfred G. Luyster (1881 - 1958). Among the very first items placed in the Association's new Freehold museum when it opened in 1931, the cupboard and an exceptional grisaille-painted kast (accession number 1986.511) also from the Luyster brothers were transferred to Marlpit Hall in Middletown in 1936 when that historic house opened to the public. They remain on view there.

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