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23
WEDNESDAY
One of the cruder uses of a sideboard illustrated in the DAR Museum’s “American Case Furniture 1680-1840” exhibit features English gentlemen storing their chamber pots just steps away from the dinner table. The print reveals a need for immediate bowel relief, a likelihood that these men didn’t have to clean the cupboard themselves, and that the French printmaker was making a political statement about colonics. I mean, colonists. Otherwise, the exhibit’s three rooms of case furniture and decorative appointments might conjure fantasies for fans of This Old House who lust for dovetail-constructed armoires and bookcases. For the skinny on constitutional issues and the limited shopping options in 17th- to 19th-century America, ask exhibit curator Patrick Sheary at his slide lecture at noon at the DAR Museum, 1776 D St. NW. FREE. For reservations call (202) 879-3241. (Ginger Eckert)