With its serpentine front and sides and canted corners, this chest-of-drawers embodies the bold and exuberant rococo serpentine line typically associated with the most fashionable and up-to-date cabinetmakers of Philadelphia; with its massive spade feet, however, it also shows the gradual change in consumer taste to the geometric aesthetic associated with the late 18th century. Two illustrations for virtually the same form from Thomas Shearer's The London Cabinet Book of Prices (London: Society of Cabinetmakers, 1788) underscore that the design of this chest-of-drawers represents an immediate knowledge of the most recently available European fashions, and that these newest designs also were an aesthetic in transition.

Plates 10, fig. 4 and 20, fig. 2, a chest-of-drawers with similar undulating front and sides, of Shearer's design book show the source from which the cabinetmaker of this chest-of-drawers presumably derived the appearance of this form. Called a "commode dressing chest with o.g. [sic] ends," Shearer went on to list other options available to the form. Departures from the basic form included alterations of the standard height, all over veneering, crossbanded details, and variations to the feet (Shearer, p. 29). Each change from the standard model represented an additional nominal cost to the buyer. Accordingly, a chest-of-drawers such as the example illustrated here would have been slightly more expensive than the basic price of L1 14.

Several similar chests of drawers are in museum and private collections. A Chippendale chest of drawers made after 1783 with similar bale handles is in the collection of Winterthur, and is illustrated in Hummel, A Winterthur Guide to American Chippendale Furniture: (Mid-Atlantic and Southern Colonies, Winterthur, 1976), p. 82, fig. 78; a chest of drawers attributed to Jonathan Gostelowe is illustrated in American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol. IX, p. 2455, fig. P6103