ATTRIBUTED TO JOSEPH ARMITT (D.1747), PHILADELPHIA, CIRCA 1745

Distinctively carved with rounded fronts and short paneling terminating in rounded gouge cuts, the trifid feet of this high chest relate closely to those of a dressing table attributed to the shop of Philadelphia joiner Joseph Armitt (d. 1747) (see William MacPherson Hornor, Jr., Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (Washington D.C., 1935), pl. 39). This attribution is further strengthened by the similarly idiosyncratic foot carvings on a roundabout armchair and two side chairs also credited to Armitt's shop and later owned by his descendants in the Miers family of Philadelphia (Hornor, pls. 71, 23, 24; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1985), pp. 87-89, cat. 43).