A GEORGE III MAHOGANY SERPENTINE DRESSING-CHEST

While Thomas Chippendale is rightly celebrated for his neo-classical furniture of the 1770s he was equally at home in the patronage of those clients who preferred their furniture `done in a neat but not an expensive manner'. The chest offered here conforms to the latter, displaying a number of features characteristic of his restrained, sober work and with notable economy of decoration; these include: the use of red wash on secondary carcase timbers, short-grain drawer kickers, chamfered drawer stops and the concave plinth moulding.
Comparable work from this period includes mahogany and oak furniture supplied to Sir Rowland Winn for Nostell Priory, Yorkshire from 1766, mahogany and `black rosewood' furniture to Sir Edward Knatchbull Bt. for Mersham Le Hatch, Kent from 1767, and mahogany furniture to Ninian Home for Paxton House, Berwickshire from 1774.