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Lot Essay
With its expert cabinetry, generous use of mahogany, and commanding presence, this chest-on-chest is one of a small number to survive from late eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Other chest-on-chests in this select group include those attributed to the maker Thomas Affleck as The Loockerman family chest-on-chest, carved by Hercules Courtenay (ca.1744-1784) and illustrated as lot 614, The Stephen Girard chest-on-chest (Sold in these Rooms, The Collection of May and Howard Joynt, January 19-20, 1990, lot 497); The Fisher family piece in The Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), pp.226-8, no.147; and, the chest-on-chest carved for David Deshler in The Collection of Colonial Willimsburt (illustrated in Hornor, Blue Book: Philadelphia Furniture (Philadelphia, 1977, pl.123).
The carved urn-and-flower cartouche which resembles that in the Loockerman example, was carved from the same design source as that in The Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (illustrated in Heckscher, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992), p.205, fig.141), as well as to that on a Edwards-Harrison Family High Chest made by Thomas Tufft (Sold in these Rooms, May 1987, lot 201).
The carved urn-and-flower cartouche which resembles that in the Loockerman example, was carved from the same design source as that in The Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (illustrated in Heckscher, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992), p.205, fig.141), as well as to that on a Edwards-Harrison Family High Chest made by Thomas Tufft (Sold in these Rooms, May 1987, lot 201).