A linen press is the 18th-century version of a hall closet, used to store bedding and bathing linens and typically placed on the second floor of a large American home. This grand example is covered with imported mahogany veneers, or fine sheets of wood, to impress visitors. At the top, curving scrolls with stars and delicate latticelike fretwork flank a stained, inlaid wood kylix—a shallow Greek or Roman bowl with horizontal handles—suggesting the owner’s knowledge of ancient empires. John Shaw emigrated from Scotland to Annapolis, Maryland, in the early 1760s. Inside the cabinet is one of Shaw’s paper labels inked with the date 1797 and the initials “JA” or “IH,” which may record unidentified cabinetmakers or one of the multiple enslaved craftspeople who worked in his shop.