Pre-Industrial Revolution · 1720 – 1830

Pennsylvania Dutch

Predominant in the German settlements in Pennsylvania. Painted decoration, hearts and tulips, durable utilitarian forms.

Pennsylvania Dutch
Chest, ca. 1780 — The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

The furniture of the German settlements of Pennsylvania — “Dutch” a worn-down Deutsch, their own word for their language. These were the forebears of the Mennonites and Amish, and the plainness shows it, lifted by bright painted decoration. The dower chest and the schrank, or wardrobe, are its signature forms.

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