RHODE ISLAND OR COASTAL CONNECTICUT, 1760-1770

Displaying a number of idiosyncratic features, this high chest suggests the hand of an inventive craftsman working within the sphere of influence of Newport cabinetmaking. The high arching skirt, slender legs and pointed feet are all reminiscent of urban Rhode Island practices of the mid-eighteenth century. Less common but seen in Rhode Island furniture of this period is the use of a fully enclosed tympanum fitted with drawers, examples of which are recorded in the Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery (see nos. RIF818, RIF1901, RIF2988, RIF3933; for a chest-on-chest with this feature, see Wayne Pratt, Inc., advertisement, The Magazine Antiques (May 2003), back cover). Possibly indicative of Connecticut practices, skirts with similar oversized lobes appear on five flat-top high chests in the Archive catalogued as either Connecticut or Rhode Island (nos. RIF4704, RIF2718, RIF1967, RIF3881 and RIF3881). All of these examples have skirts composed of opposing cyma curves. In contrast, the profile of the skirt on the chest offered here is highly unusual with its outermost elements consisting of small ogee-shaped passages and a close parallel is seen on a flat-top maple high chest ascribed to mid eighteenth-century Rhode Island (RIF2951). Finally, the most distinctive detail seen on this chest is the shaping of the feet, with upturned “toes” and visually distinct “heels.” While no other instances of this boot-like design have been found, it can be seen as an imaginative interpretation of the Rhode Island slipper foot (for slipper feet with slightly upturned “toes,” see RIF517 and RIF2354).