A QUEEN ANNE HIGHLY FIGURED MAPLE DRESSING TABLE

One of the most vibrant illustrations of figured maple on eighteenth-century American furniture, this dressing table contains chestnut secondary woods and was most likely made in Rhode Island or perhaps along the border in eastern Connecticut. The interior construction also reveals the idiosyncratic habits of a fastidious craftsman. Adjacent vertical glueblocks behind the legs are carefully planed to form a curvilinear surface and the drawer runners are finely shaped and tapered at their junctures with the backboard. While the recessed arch on the lower central drawer is a feature that appears on several Rhode Island dressing tables of the period, it is unusual to have this feature with a lower rail that is straight rather than blocked, as is the practice of placing the knee returns underneath rather than in front of the lower rail. For a walnut dressing table made in Rhode Island exhibiting these same details seen on the form offered here, see the Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery, RIF220.