PROBABLY NORWICH, CONNECTICUT, 1780-1790

With its steeply deeply carved shell and vigorously-shaped double-cusp ogee bracket feet with bead surround, this chest-on-chest aligns closely with a larger body of surviving examples of case pieces made in New London County, Connecticut. Other characteristics of furniture from this region include the use of dentilling and fluted pilasters. The presence of a pitch pediment is typical of high-style urban centers, such as Boston, and is extremely unusual for Connecticut casework, where a broken-arched or swans'-neck pediment was the preference.

A closely related chest-on-chest, attributed to Norwich and virtually identical in all respects with the exception of the pediment, is in the the Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barbour Collection at the Connecticut Historical Society, illustrated in Minor Myers, Jr. and Edgar deN. Mayhew, New London County Furniture 1640-1840 (New London, Connecticut, 1974), p. 53, cat. no 56 and Connecticut Historical Society, Frederick K. & Margaret R. Barbour's Furniture Collection (Hartford, 1963), pp. 52-53.

The engraved plaque on the side of the chest implies that it was previously owned by Commodore Isaac Hull (1773-1843). Hull, the captain of "Old Ironsides," the U.S.S. Constitution, married Anne McCurdy Hart (1790-1874) the daughter of Elisha Hart and Jeanette McCurdy. As Jeanette was from New London County, the chest-on-chest may have been made for her marriage in 1786.