Object: Kast, 1650-1700

The kast [kas] in Dutch also called linnenkast, was easily the most monumental and elaborately decorated piece of furniture in the home, depicted as such in many painted Dutch domestic scenes of the period. Here one stored the family’s household linens, fancy clothing, and other valuable items, with the lady of the house always keeping an eye on the use of the kast and carefully carrying its key on her chain.

More than just a storage place, the kast was an important status symbol, both in the Netherlands and across the ocean in New Netherland: its size and ornamentation directly reflecting the family's wealth and social standing. As such families who rose to prominence in New Amsterdam also would have a kast in their house (Sara Kierstede; Margrieta van Varick) and several kasten are mentioned in inventories and last wills of the 17th and early 18th century as important legacies passed down through generations.

Metropolitan Museum Summary:

A kast is a distinctive type of cupboard that was made in the New York—New Jersey area settled by the Dutch. Strongly architectural in design, the kast derived from Dutch prototypes and was made in America until the early 1800s. The most important piece of furniture in the home, it was probably often a dowry gift. The striking painted surface on this kast simulates stone and is highly unusual. Certain features of the construction and design details reflect, as does the form of the kast itself, Continental rather than English influences. This kast, one of a small number in the seventeenth-century style to have survived, is a rare example of joined oak furniture from the New York area.

Demographics/Occupation:  Carpenter  , Turner  , Trades  

Reference:

Title: Kast

Date: 1650–1700

Geography: Possibly made in New York, New York, United States

Culture: American - Dutch Colonial

Medium: Painted white oak, red oak

Dimensions: 70 x 67 x 25 in. (177.8 x 170.2 x 63.5 cm)

Credit Line: Gift of Millia Davenport, 1988

Object Number: 1988.21