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Shumway House parlor
about 1740
Object Place: Fiskdale, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States
Medium/Technique
Pitch-pine; apparently never painted
Dimensions
Length 15 feet, 3 inches; width 13 feet, 10 inches; height 7 feet, 10 inches
Credit Line
Helen and Alice Colburn Fund
Accession Number25.620
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsArchitectural elements
DescriptionThree-walled alcove consisting of paneled west wall housing central fireplace flanked by paneled door to left and cupboard to right, with built-in drawers above the fireplace; north wall with original dado paneling and door; east wall with modern reproduction dado. Brick hearth and painted pine floor boards are eighteenth-century in date but not originally from this room. The granite fireplace is a reproduction of the one originally in the house.
ProvenanceThis woodwork is from the southeast parlor of a dwelling known as the Shumway House, erected about 1740 on the Post Road about two miles south of the town of Fiskdale, Massachusetts. The house was occupied by descendants of the original owners until 1916. The paneling from two walls, all that remained of the original fabric of the house, was removed from the house in 1925. It was purchased by the MFA in December 1925 from the New York dealer Charles Woolsey Lyon, Inc. for $4,000. The room was opened to the public in the Museum's East Wing in October 1928, then closed for Museum renovations in 2002.