Description:
Queen Anne bonnet-top high chest of drawers in mahogany with three flame (or corkscrew) finials over eleven drawers. The chest descended in the Dudley/Child families, and was purchased from Rev. Dudley R. Child of Duxbury, Mass (inherited from her father Paul Dudley Child, who inherited it from his mother, daughter of William). According to family tradition, the chest was made for William Dudley (1686-1743), youngest son of Governor Joseph Dudley (1647-1720), colonial governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire (1702-1715). William acted as his father's emissary and spy in 1705 and 1706 in the on-going negotiations to redeem the remaining captives of the 1704 Raid on Deerfield (they returned with eleven captives, including Stephen and Samuel Williams and Jonathan Hoyt); gained a reputation as an officer in the expedition against Port Royal in 1707; was a Colonel of the Suffolk County Regiment from 1710 until his death; accepted election to the House of Representatives in 1718, serving as Speaker from 1724-1728; and was a member of the Governor's Council. He is said to have been the first native-born lawyer (Harvard, 1704) who sat on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas (appointed in Suffolk in 1727). However, according to Philip Zea (11/6/99), the chest dates circa 1760 and is unlikely to have belonged to William Dudley, but probably did descend in the Dudley family. The upper section has bonnet top with a molded swan's neck crest and three carved flame finials, the two side finials on plain plinth; over three top short drawers across, with a carved fan on the middle drawer; over four graduated long drawers. The lower case has mid-molding over one large drawer; over three short drawers across, with a carved fan on the middle drawer; over the apron with two drop pendants; over four cabriole legs ending in pad feet. The brasses are original.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+0966 |
