The New Yankee Workshop

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is a treasure house of the first order that boasts remarkable collections of early American furniture, including some incomparable pieces by Goddard and Townsend, the famous Colonial-era Rhode Island furniture makers. Norm is drawn to a simple chest that is undergoing laboratory investigation at the museum. Known as the Taunton Chest, the piece was named for the Massachusetts town where Robert Crosman (1710-1799) built it nearly three hundred years ago. This highly decorated small chest is one of only a handful of Crosman originals that remain intact today. One like it was offered by Christie's Auction House not long ago and went for the amazing sum of close to three million. Norm builds his version out of poplar and calls on decorative artist Natalie Gardner to precisely copy the paintwork of the original design.