Description:
Queen Anne high chest of drawers with a scroll top and three flame finials. Probably made in Ipswitch, Massachusetts. Both shells have a gilded background.
Label Text:
A member of a well-to-do Essex County, Massachusetts family commissioned this high chest from an Ipswich, Massachusetts cabinetmaker probably around 1740. In New England, wealthy families chose high chests, often with matching dressing tables, to furnish their best bed chambers and to give as wedding gifts to daughters. High chests stored clothing and household textiles. The cabriole legs and enclosed broken-scroll pediment derive from Classical architecture. Compound cornice moldings and flame finials complete the design. The features of this high chest represent a radical departure from the joined oak furniture of the previous generation.
Construction: The top and bottom boards of the upper case are dovetailed to the case sides. A top board separates the enclosed bonnet from the top drawer cavity. The upper case sits within moldings attached to the top of the lower case. The lower case sides are attached to the legs with mortise-and-tenon joints secured with pins.
Tool marks: The random pattern of deep grooves cut into the underside of the top board in the upper compartment are identifying marks that a sawyer made at the sawmill. Fine, parallel grooves on the sides and backboard are teeth marks from a toothing plane—a small hand plane with an iron serrated edge. Particularly suited to smoothing veneer, toothing planes were also useful for quickly smoothing boards for case furniture because they could be worked in any direction, regardless of the direction of the grain, or the presence of knots. An irregular pattern of saw marks on the backboards of the case indicate that two workmen used a frame saw to cut the backboards.
Decoration: This high chest conveyed a powerful visual statement appropriate to the new, Palladian-style houses that wealthy colonists were building in the early-eighteenth century that featured rooms with plastered walls, high ceilings and large windows. A greater amount of interior light enabled householders to see the figure of natural wood in furniture. Furniture finished with coats of highly polished varnish and decorated with carved and gilded motifs reflected light, increasing its visual appeal. This high chest is decorated with bookmatched veneer--two sheets of veneer consecutively cut from the same section of a log and laid side-by-side to create a symmetrical pattern with the seam in the center. The drawer fronts are framed with herringbone cross-banded inlay. Two shell-carved drawers are embellished with gilding at their fluted edges.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1058 |
