Lot Essay
An identical pair of knifeboxes is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and on exhibit in the furniture study collection. Both pair exhibit the same construction features whereby the support is round-tenoned into the base and wedged with a wooden cylinder; the radiating veneer flitches of the domed lid are on the interior as well as exterior; the dome, where extended, is supported by two flaps on either side of the shaft. Another related pair attributed to Philadelphia is illustrated in Venable, American Furniture in the Bybee Collection (Austin, Univeristy of Texas Press, 1989), fig. 45.