With its bold rounded blocked facade, shaped bracket feet, and cusped drop pendant, this chest-of-drawers is among the most sophisticated forms and highly desired pieces of furniture in eightheenth century Boston. Two basic shapes of blocking were employed by cabinetmakers, the rounded block exhibited here, reserved for smaller forms of chest and bureaus, and the flattened block front which was more common and used on larger case pieces.

For a nearly identical example thought to have been by an apprentice in the Frothingham shop, and bearing the chalk inscription, "Wm Frothingham," see The Magazine Antiques (June, 1953) vol. LXIII, p. 505, figs. 13 & 14., thought to be an apprentice in the Frothingham shop. A second example attributed to the shop of Benjamin Frothingham is now in the collection of the Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities is illustrated and discussed in Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture (Boston, 1984) pp. 138-141, fig. 14. Another example in the collection of The Metropolitian Museum of Art is illustrated and discussed in Morrison M. Heckscher, American Furniture in The Metropolitian Museum of Art (New York, 1985) pp. 215-216, fig. 136.