Description:
Bombe chest of drawers in mahogany. Carved from thick planks, the swelled shape of this chest is derived from British and European prototypes, particularly the Italian casonne, which underscored man's ability to manipulate materials found in nature. This example is distinguished by the complex brackets on either side of the claw feet and the sharp angle between the flat and bulging planes at the second and third drawers. These details suggest manufacture in Salem, just north of Boston, where most so-called bombe furniture was made in several cabinet shops between about 1750 and 1790. The chest has a molded top with a wide overhang, over four graduated drawers with the original Chippendale flattened urn with bail pull brasses. The interior sides of the lower two drawers are slanted - to the outside on the third drawer, and to the inside on the bottom drawer. There is a molded bottom rail with a center drop and four bracketed ball and claw feet with large talons pulled back in typical Massachusetts fashion. The bottom drawer front, top, and case are mahogany, and the drawer structures are white pine.
Label Text:
Exhibited in "Rococo: Celebrating 18th-Century Design and Decoration" (2018-2019): Sawn and carved from thick planks, the shape of this chest, known as bombe, or swelled, is derived from British and European prototypes. It shows man's ability to manipulate materials found in nature, in this case exotic imported mahogany, into sinous curves. This example is distinguished by the sharp angle between the flat and bulging planes at the second and third drawers. The bombe form required specific shapes and angles that resulted in more graduated depths of drawers than normally seen in chests of drawers, which perhaps made it suitable to store a wider variety of household objects. It would have demonstrated the owner's sophisticated taste while providing useful storage space. The bombe form was not foreign to the Connecticut River Valley. Jonathan Dwight (1743-1831) of Springfield, Massachusetts, is known to have purchased a bombe desk and bookcase from a Boston area cabinetmaker in the 1780s.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+53.036 |
