Rarely does a matching high chest and dressing table survive en suite. Separated through family divisions of property, most examples were dispersed generations ago and often refinished and updated with replaced brasses. Not only does this pair remain intact but both objects retain their original pierced brass hardware and old finish. Made for the Gilbert family of Salem, this high chest and dressing table are quintessential examples of north shore craftmanship with turned pad feet, distinctive volute knee returns, flattened-arch skirt with shell-carved and blocked central drawer with corresponding upper case shell in the high chest and ring-turned flattened urn spiral-twist finials. The case construction of both pieces is sturdy yet in typical fashion time was not taken for incidentals such as the removal of bark from the inner back of the dressing table or the medial strut in the upper section of the high chest.

Related matching high chests and dressing tables include a suite made by Benjamin Frothingham now at Winterthur Museum (Randall, "Benjamin Frothingham," Whitehill ed., Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century (Boston, 1974), nos. 154-155); a pair sold in these Rooms, June 16, 1984, lot 435; and a matched set illustrated in Sack, American Furniture From the Israel Sack Collection vol. II (1968), p. 466, P1147.