Painters, furniture designers, carvers, and civic reformers, Arthur and Lucia Mathews were leaders of the Arts and Crafts movement in northern California. Arthur Mathews apprenticed as an architect before spending several years traveling and receiving classical art training at the Academie Julian in Paris. Upon his return to San Francisco in 1889, he worked as a muralist, painter, art educator, and director of the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art, where he met his wife, Lucia. Together they established the Furniture Shop in San Francisco, which provided custom furniture and interior designs. Their typical work would have been considered "artistic furniture," made with superior craftsmanship and small shop traditions, but in revival styles. This chest, however, is an example of a rare group of extraordinary carved and polychromed objects made for close friends, family, and for a few special commissions. These works are set in the California landscape—depicted as an unsullied, pre-industrial Eden—but recall the heritage of the Mediterranean world, uniting the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and the classicism of the American Renaissance. Arthur Mathews, working with a group of craftsmen, designed most of the furniture and decorative accessories; Lucia Mathews assisted with designing and supervised color choices and carving.
