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Lot Essay
This robust and striking dresser has many of the characteristics of West Midlands dressers made with cabriole legs. However, this example has a uniqueness of style which indicates a maker who worked with a highly individual sense, within a normally conventional tradition and who created elaborate and unusual inlays on the drawers and doors.
The cabriole front legs are virtually straight, and have large 'knees' with shell carving on them. The straight frieze under the drawers is relieved with three small pendant shapes of a design which is echoed in a larger form in the top frieze of the shelves and is a common Welsh or Welsh Borders motif. The four drawers fitted into the base are crossbanded and strung in perhaps a unique way, with oblique central crossbanding of both the heart and sap wood of plum, and with chequer inlays on the inside and outer edge of this made of plain and black-stained oak. The small drawers in the shelves have chevron crossbandings of plum wood and pale and dark chequer inlays of oak inside this which are similar to those used on the doors above them.
The cabriole front legs are virtually straight, and have large 'knees' with shell carving on them. The straight frieze under the drawers is relieved with three small pendant shapes of a design which is echoed in a larger form in the top frieze of the shelves and is a common Welsh or Welsh Borders motif. The four drawers fitted into the base are crossbanded and strung in perhaps a unique way, with oblique central crossbanding of both the heart and sap wood of plum, and with chequer inlays on the inside and outer edge of this made of plain and black-stained oak. The small drawers in the shelves have chevron crossbandings of plum wood and pale and dark chequer inlays of oak inside this which are similar to those used on the doors above them.