For New Englanders / New Yorkers and others within traveling range, this is the last week for “Connecticut Valley Furniture by Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800,” on exhibit in Hartford at the Connecticut Historical Society museum.

I have no connection to the exhibit, but allow me to do a little advertising for it.

From the New York Times:

“Pioneers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut began to settle the valley by the mid-1600’s. It didn’t take long for them to thrive from a lucrative river-borne trade with the West Indies. They sold lumber, horses, wheat, beef and onions to the Indies, and they furnished their houses with fine, custom-made high-style furniture.

“That furniture is the subject of a small but important new exhibition. … It includes about two dozen masterworks — high chests, dressing tables, candle stands, secretaries and side chairs — from Connecticut’s golden age of furniture production.

“When he was nearly 30, [Chapin] opened his own shop in East Windsor [Conn.]. His business prospered. He did not sign his furniture, but products from his workshop can be readily identified because he took the rococo elements he had mastered in Philadelphia and simplified them for the Connecticut aesthetic.

Characteristics include ball-and-claw feet, diamond- or scroll-interlaced splats on chairs, cabriole legs, latticework pediments on high chests and abstractions of rococo lines in the cartouches that decorated high chests.

“In styles ranging from Queen Anne to Chippendale to Federal, the pieces are arranged against lime-green walls. Leigh and Leslie Keno, twin brothers who are Americana experts, filmed accompanying videos about individual pieces. Lenders include the Historical Society, Yale University Art Gallery, the Winterthur Museum, Historic Deerfield, the Brooklyn Museum and private individuals.â€

The exhibit’s last day is Sunday, Jan. 15. The historical society is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Its website is www.chs.org.