Talk:High chest of drawers (Indianapolis Museum of Art)

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Philadelphia Low‑importance

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Appropriateness

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This strikes me as an inappropriately generic title for an article. There are scores of Philadelphia Chippendale high chests, thousands if you include reproductions, and to claim the title for this single anonymous example feels very wrong. Creating an article titled Portrait of a Man without artist or context would be similarly disturbing. It would be better to turn this into an article on the Philadelphia Chippendale high chest type – its characteristics, evolution, makers, examples, etc.

I also am uncomfortable with the article calling a high chest by John Goddard of Newport, Rhode Island, "a similar piece." In what way are they similar, except in being pieces of furniture? Such overreaching undermines credibility.

Wiki Commons has images of other Philadelphia Chippendale high chests, and there are exceptional examples on the websites of Colonial Williamsburg, Winterthur, Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. - BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 17:42, 24 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

It would be terrific if someone were to write an article about the history of the Chippendale highboy, but I haven't noticed a lot of excitement about furniture on Wikipedia. My particular purpose is to write up objects in the Indianapolis Museum of Art; I once got sidetracked into a larger article about a series of tapestries by Rubens, and it was murder so I won't be doing that again. I don't mind if you make this article's title more precise by tacking on the institution or accession number. I just didn't think it was necessary because the general apathy about this subject meant there weren't going to be any articles with which it could be confused. Again, I would be just tickled if someone proved me wrong by writing that article. Or even responding on this talk page.

Regarding the newspaper article: both pieces were Chippendale highboys from the 18th century (most likely from within a decade or two of each other, given the style's history). The IMA doesn't seem to know the artisan, so that's as specific as the similarity can get. Zambonia (talk) 04:18, 27 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

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