Lot Essay
With its distinctive skirt, this dressing table resembles a large body of case furniture traditionally associated with the Connecticut cabinetmaker, Eliphalet Chapin. The attribution of the larger group is based upon ball-and-claw feet boldly carved in the Philadelphia manner that are similar to examples on two Chapin-documented side chairs in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated in Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of American Seating Furniture, Boston, 1976, pp.138-140, cat.117. As Chapin is known to have spent several years in Philadelphia before returning to East Windsor in 1771, he is frequently credited with Connecticut furniture displaying Philadelphia-inspired decoration and construction methods.
Recent scholarship has compiled an index of key features that provides a framework for identifying those objects made by Chapin and his shop and those made by shops influenced by his work (Alice Kugelman, Thomas Kugelman and Robert Lionetti, "The Chapin School of East Windsor, Connecticut," Maine Antique Digest, January 1994, pp.12D-13D).
This dressing table was in all likelihood made by craftsmen familiar with Chapin products. With drawer supports tenoned through the backboards, a central lower drawer of the greater height than side lower drawers, and an identifiable skirt profile, the dressing table shares elements with Philadelphia and more specifically Chapin Shop furniture. Other components, however, clearly indicate its Connecticut manufacture. The overhanging top without supporting molding, tightly-carved fan, and pad feet are features common to central Connecticut furniture, but not employed by Chapin. Three other dressing tables bear Chapin characteristics; one is in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection and is illustrated in Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture, New Haven, 1988, pp.214-216, cat.108; the second is in The Connecticut Historical Society and illustrated in Kugelman, et al., figs. 3a and 3b; the third is in a private collection. All of the latter are made of cherrywood and finished to imitate mahogany; this is the only example of its form made of mahogany. Both the Yale dressing table and this dressing table bear original bail handles.
Recent scholarship has compiled an index of key features that provides a framework for identifying those objects made by Chapin and his shop and those made by shops influenced by his work (Alice Kugelman, Thomas Kugelman and Robert Lionetti, "The Chapin School of East Windsor, Connecticut," Maine Antique Digest, January 1994, pp.12D-13D).
This dressing table was in all likelihood made by craftsmen familiar with Chapin products. With drawer supports tenoned through the backboards, a central lower drawer of the greater height than side lower drawers, and an identifiable skirt profile, the dressing table shares elements with Philadelphia and more specifically Chapin Shop furniture. Other components, however, clearly indicate its Connecticut manufacture. The overhanging top without supporting molding, tightly-carved fan, and pad feet are features common to central Connecticut furniture, but not employed by Chapin. Three other dressing tables bear Chapin characteristics; one is in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection and is illustrated in Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture, New Haven, 1988, pp.214-216, cat.108; the second is in The Connecticut Historical Society and illustrated in Kugelman, et al., figs. 3a and 3b; the third is in a private collection. All of the latter are made of cherrywood and finished to imitate mahogany; this is the only example of its form made of mahogany. Both the Yale dressing table and this dressing table bear original bail handles.