NEW YORK, 1760-1780

Described as a "little gem" and a "masterpiece" by Albert Sack, this exquisite chest-of-drawers is an oustanding survival from New York's Chippendale era. Its diminutive size, graceful serpentine shaping and beautifully carved ornament are rare instances of such refined craftsmanship in eighteenth-century New York furniture. In particular, the sweep of its curvilinear lines is dramatic, an effect enhanced by the chest's exceptionally narrow depth, which is over five inches less than the depths of the closest comparable chests, shown in figs. 1 and 2. These related chests display similar overall forms and like the chest offered here, feature the rare detail of a slide above the top drawer. One possibly documented to 1752, both of these chests can be firmly ascribed to the 1750s as they display carved ornament attributed to Henry Hardcastle, an immigrant carver who was only working in New York from circa 1750 to 1755. Despite his short time in the City, Hardcastle (d. 1756) was a prolific and influential craftsman whose vocabulary of carved ornament would inspire subsequent practitioners of the craft in the following decades. With carved details varying from Hardcastle's documented and attributed work but similar to that on chairs and card tables from the 1760s and 1770s, this chest probably reflects the work of one of these later craftsmen. In particular, the rocaille surrounds to the C-scrolls on the knee brackets are embellished with incised circles and cabochons, a motif seen with some frequency on serpentine-front card tables and tassel-back chairs (see Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Greene Bowman, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament (New York, 1992), p. 160, no. 108; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), nos. 27-29, 33-34, 102 (also illustrated as fig. 2 for lot 113 in this sale), 103; Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York, 1952), nos. 147, 149, 338, 339; Christie's, New York, 25 January 2013, lot 176 and 21 January 2011, lot 91). Like the chest in fig. 1, which is documented to cabinetmaker Thomas Brookman, that offered here is finished to a high standard on the interior and both have drawers fronts carefully shaped on the interior to follow the lines of the façades. Other details vary, however, such as the lack of chamfering to the poplar full dustboards, and while the maker of the chest offered here may have been influenced by the design of the earlier chests, he probably worked in a different shop.

Made for the Beekman and Van Rensselaer families, the related chests in figs. 1 and 2 suggest that these were expensive forms only available to the most affluent. While its early history is unknown, it is probable that the chest offered here was similarly first owned by a prominent New York family. During the twentieth century, it was sold three times by the firm of Israel Sack, Inc., on each occasion entering a collection of considerable renown. In the 1950s, the chest furnished a bedroom in the Ardsley-on-Hudson home of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchel Taradash where it stood alongside a Boston block-front desk and bookcase and a white-painted 'lighthouse' clock by Simon Willard. The chest then entered the New Hampshire collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson before returning to New York, where it became a part of the Wunsch Collection.