A Whaler's Sea Chest From the Collection of Henry Alexander Murray

 A sailor's sea chest was one of his most important possessions — on a long voyage it held everything he owned, and served as his table, his chair, his bank, and his bureau. Most were plain and utilitarian. The chest now in our webstore is something else entirely: a mid-19th-century decorated six-board sea chest, American, probably New England, that is exceptional in both construction and decoration.

Top of the sea chest lid with painted whaling scene.

The chest is built of white pine with nailed joints and a canted front and back. The single-board top carries tooled molded edges and applied end cleats — structural details added to keep the lid true against warping. The top hangs on snipe hinges, an early forged-iron form made from cotter-pin-like pieces driven through the top and the chest back, their hooked ends interlacing to form the hinge itself.

White pine was used to build this sea chest. Closeup view of one
of the snipe hinges, fastening the top to the chest.

The lid's exterior carries a colorful panoramic painting of a dramatic whaling chase scene, enclosed within a painted rope border that follows the lid's rectangular outline. Lift the lid and the underside is left in natural pine, bearing a painted silhouette of a black sperm whale backed by a crossed whaler's harpoon and oar. 

View of the interior lid with black silhouette painting of a whale
with crossed harpoons.

The chest's exterior is painted olive green. Inside, a ditty box (till) is fastened in the upper right with a single drawer and an open cavity below. 

The interior till (ditty box) with lower drawer.

And in a detail collectors will appreciate: the original leather-wrapped beckets survive, with their painted-wood side cleats, and the original lock remains in place (the key is missing).

Original leather-wrapped rope becket sea chest handle with 
green-painted side cleat.

Dimensions: 39 3/4 inches wide, 18 1/2 inches deep, 17 1/4 inches high.

Painted chests come to market regularly; chests with a period whaling chase scene on the lid, original beckets intact, and an undisturbed ditty box do not. This is a rarity in the survival sense — a decorated whaler's chest where everything that should have survived, did.

PROVENANCE: The chest came from the personal collection of Henry Alexander Murray (1893–1988) — Harvard psychologist, leading authority on Herman Melville, twice president of the Melville Society, whose collection of Melville books, manuscripts, and artifacts was donated to the Berkshire Athenaeum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A man who spent a career inside Melville's world owned this chest, and that ownership is what moves it into a different tier. We price it at $6,250 — above comparable decorated chests — because the Murray provenance, combined with the piece's physical rarity, puts it in museum-quality territory. There is one, and only ever one, of these.

See the full listing and photographs on our webstore:https://www.skipjackmarinegallery.com/a-mid-19th-century-whalers-personal-sea-chest-with-painted-whaling-chase-scene.html — $6,250, one in stock.

Visit us at 1172 State Route 32, Round Pond, ME 04564. Open year-round, Thu–Sat 11–4, Sun 1–4, Mon 11–4, and by appointment. (207) 219-0897