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Lot Essay
Exquisitely proportioned and crafted, this table-top chest-of-drawers illustrates a rarefied form from early eighteenth-century New England. Details of its design strongly suggest a Rhode Island origin, though its wood use and construction also relates to furniture from the Connecticut River Valley. With their elongated necks, the turned feet are particularly distinctive and illustrate a design favored by Rhode Island woodworkers during the first half of the eighteenth century. Furthermore, a three-tiered example dated from 1700 to 1720 with related moldings and feet descended in the Manchester and Elliott families of Portsmouth, Rhode Island (fig. 1) and two full-size chests-of-drawers serve as additional Rhode Island cognates (fig. 2) (Erik Kyle Gronning and Dennis Andrew Carr, "Early Rhode Island Turning," American Furniture 2005, Luke Beckerdite, ed. (Milwaukee, 2005), pp. 2-21; for the chest in fig. 1, see The Rhode Island Furniture Archive at The Yale University Art Gallery (RIFA), RIF2467 and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 29-30 April and 1 May 1981, lot 932; for the chest in fig. 2, see RIFA, RIF2163; see also, RIFA, RIF2079). The chest's maple primary woods survive with traces of what was probably an original red coat of paint and like many other examples of Rhode Island furniture from this early time period, its secondary woods are of yellow pine. Another distinctive feature is the use of large dovetails that extend significantly beyond the drawer backs. For a full-size Rhode Island chest-of-drawers displaying both this combination of woods and the large rear dovetails, see RIFA, RIF198.
The chest's wood use, applied half-round moldings and large rear drawer dovetails, however, are also seen on Connecticut River Valley furniture from the early eighteenth century and it is possible that this table-top chest was made in central Connecticut or Massachusetts. A group of chests employing maple and yellow pine woods with similar moldings and with rear drawer dovetails of exaggerated size are thought to have been made in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Several of these also feature both cornice and base moldings related to those on the chest offered here. See Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (New York, 1976), p. 177, nos. 371-373; Gerald W. R. Ward and William N. Hosley, Jr., eds., The Great River: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820 (Hartford, 1985), p. 207, cat. 85; Sotheby's, New York, 25-26 January 2013, lot 373).
Christie's would like to thank Patricia E. Kane and Joshua Lane for their assistance with this essay.
The chest's wood use, applied half-round moldings and large rear drawer dovetails, however, are also seen on Connecticut River Valley furniture from the early eighteenth century and it is possible that this table-top chest was made in central Connecticut or Massachusetts. A group of chests employing maple and yellow pine woods with similar moldings and with rear drawer dovetails of exaggerated size are thought to have been made in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Several of these also feature both cornice and base moldings related to those on the chest offered here. See Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (New York, 1976), p. 177, nos. 371-373; Gerald W. R. Ward and William N. Hosley, Jr., eds., The Great River: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1820 (Hartford, 1985), p. 207, cat. 85; Sotheby's, New York, 25-26 January 2013, lot 373).
Christie's would like to thank Patricia E. Kane and Joshua Lane for their assistance with this essay.