MASSACHUSETTS, 1750-1780

An exceedingly rare survival of a high chest and matching dressing table, these forms fashioned with three flat arches across the front skirts, fan carved drawers and cabriole legs with pad feet illustrate classic features of Massachusetts cabinetmaking. Few examples of Queen Anne matching high chests and dressing tables of related form exist. A pair with similar fan carving, volute knee returns and pad feet from the collection of Diane and Norman Bernstein was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 22 January 2006, lot 48. Another similar Massachusetts example from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh B. Cox sold Christie’s, New York, 16 June 1984, lot 435. A pair signed by Benjamin Frothingham, Jr. is in the collection at Winterthur and illustrated in Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Winterthur, 1997), nos. 162-163, pp. 313-318.