PC: Sotheby’s
A small carved oak cabinet made in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1677 reached Sotheby’s as a few photographs submitted through its online portal. In January 2026, the Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century Valuables Cabinet sold for $1,636,000, the highest price for American furniture in more than a decade. It is attributed to the Symonds shops in Salem and dated 1677. Sotheby’s records the sale price as $1,636,000. Above it is the date the Hornes had the cabinet made: 1677, the year their son was born. The sale took place in 2026, and the final price was $1,636,000.
In the account Sotheby’s gives, a single photograph therefore moved the cabinet from an object that appeared ordinary to one that its specialist regarded as of high importance.
It was, he says, the moment he knew for certain it was a period piece. The piece is titled the Highly Important Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century Valuables Cabinet, according to Sotheby’s. Erik Gronning, a senior advisor in Sotheby’s American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts Department, says the heart was included to symbolise the couple’s love. He says it was the final submitted image, the one showing the original key, that made him certain the cabinet was a period piece and a highly important one. The cabinet to the Symonds shops and says it is the only one of the five known examples to retain its original key. It later passed to a local historical society, which the article says had quietly held it for some sixty years before deciding to let it go.
To an untrained eye, it might have looked like a grungy old box. Then Erik Gronning, a senior advisor in Sotheby’s American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts Department, saw the last image: the cabinet’s original key. An untrained eye might read the object as a grungy old box. Sotheby’s states that it is one of only five known examples attributed to the Symonds shops, and the only one to survive with its original key. The carved door bears the initials of Symon and Rebeckah Horne, an Andover couple, on either side of a small heart. The submitted photographs included an image of the cabinet’s original key. Gronning recalls his first reaction to the submission, saying, “I did not believe it was real when I saw it. PC: Sotheby’s The cabinet descended through the Horne family for generations. The piece then came to Sotheby’s through the submissions portal. The auction house describes this as the highest price for American furniture in more than ten years. Sotheby’s presents the cabinet alongside four other portal submissions: a Ten Commandments tablet, a Claude Lalanne armchair, a Rolex Daytona and a Qianlong-period Chinese vase. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
