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Lot Essay
With distinctive inlaid panels and shaped skirt, use of cherrywood and uniquely turned legs, this chest bears similarities to furniture produced by the cabinetmakers Alden Spooner and George Fitts.
Located in Athol, Massachusetts, this rural shop produced elegant Federal furniture and Windsor chairs between 1808 and 1813. Spooner and Fitts were fastidious and incorporated inlay and ivory fittings into their graceful objects while producing fashionable furniture without proximity to an urban center, and as such, their products were remarkably stylish.
A similar branded Spooner and Fitts chest is illustrated in Antiques (October 1979), p. 874. A card table branded Spooner with similar ring turnings and feet is illustrated in Hewitt, et al., The Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America 1790-1820 (New Haven, 1982), pp. 122-124. Two other branded chests with similar skirts and inlaid oval panels are known: one sold at Sotheby's New York, The Garbisch Collection, 23, 24 and 25 May, 1980, lot 1115 and the other is illustrated in both Ketchum, American Cabinetmakers (New York, 1995), p. 320 and Antiques (October 1952), p. 263.
Located in Athol, Massachusetts, this rural shop produced elegant Federal furniture and Windsor chairs between 1808 and 1813. Spooner and Fitts were fastidious and incorporated inlay and ivory fittings into their graceful objects while producing fashionable furniture without proximity to an urban center, and as such, their products were remarkably stylish.
A similar branded Spooner and Fitts chest is illustrated in Antiques (October 1979), p. 874. A card table branded Spooner with similar ring turnings and feet is illustrated in Hewitt, et al., The Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America 1790-1820 (New Haven, 1982), pp. 122-124. Two other branded chests with similar skirts and inlaid oval panels are known: one sold at Sotheby's New York, The Garbisch Collection, 23, 24 and 25 May, 1980, lot 1115 and the other is illustrated in both Ketchum, American Cabinetmakers (New York, 1995), p. 320 and Antiques (October 1952), p. 263.