Are the panels part of the furniture or were they applied to the piece? You may be trying to identify the painter of the panels.

Close up of table detail

Purchased some unique childrens furniture from an estate sale. Am having a hard time finding out the manufacturer and date it was made. It has "E. Pluribus. Unum" on it and also "School House". It includes a desk, bureau, night table, mirrored shelves and wall mirror. You can view photos of it at the link below. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Bob Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.cwrelics.com/epu.htm

I think that the nails we see are not original, but were part of a patch-up made after this piece had aged. The drawers may have been glued together, and then came apart. The owner resorted to nailing to keep it together. Look at the 11th photo. Toe nailing was done with nails that were much too long and the nails protrude by a large amount. This is sloppy patching, but typical of someone using whatever he has in his nail bin. In earlier photos of the drawers, the nails are not evenly spaced indicating these were placed by eye, and not measured.