Signed twice on the interior of the upper backboard and inner back face of the upper right drawer, this chest-on-chest stands as the most elaborate work that survives from the shop of the Connecticut cabinetmaker, Bates How (b. 1776). He was born Bates Hoyt How in Canaan, Connecticut on October 15, 1776 the son of Samuel How, Jr. (b. 1732) and his wife, Lydia (Pain). His family moved to New Marlborough, Massachusetts by 1785, when Bates and his twin brother, James, were baptized. His name appears in the accounts of Richard and Gilbert Smith of New Marlborough for the years 1799 and 1800, along with the names of several of his family members.1

A closely related chest of drawers signed and dated by Bates How is in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at Yale University.2 Inscribed “This Buro was made / In the Year of our Lord / 1795 / by / Bates How,” the chest is made of cherrywood with an oxbow front and three drawers. It similarly features rope-carved quarter round columns terminating in a distinctive lamb’s tongue chamfer, a gadrooned base molding, and cabriole legs with squared claw-and-ball feet. Both signed case pieces display construction details that have come to characterize How’s practice, including backboards that are dovetailed to the case sides and drawer dividers that are tenoned into the backboards.

Left: FIG 1. Bates How, Chest of Drawers, Northwestern Connecticut, 1795 (Courtesy, Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, acc. no. 1930.2154)

Right: FIG 2. Detail, Bates How, Chest of Drawers, Northwestern Connecticut, 1795 (Courtesy, Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, acc. no. 1930.2154)

Several other three drawer chests attributed to Bates How are known. A possible mate to the Yale example is in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society.3 Another was sold in these rooms, Important Americana, January 20, 2019, sale 10005, lot 1673. Two others lacking the quarter columns and gadrooned base molding are in the collection of the Mattatuck Museum (1983.9) in Waterbury, Connecticut and in a private collection (DAPC, 81.1218), respectively.

Left: FIG 3. Chest of Drawers, Connecticut Historical Society acc. no. 1967-23-1 (Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barbour’s Furniture Collection: A Supplement (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1970), p 15.

Right: FIG 4. Chippendale Carved Cherrywood Reverse Serpentine Chest of Drawers, Bates How, Northwestern Connecticut, circa 1795 (Sotheby’s, Important Americana, January 20, 2019, lot 1673)

The large pinwheel, rope twist quarter columns, gadrooned base molding and squared claw-and-ball feet found on this chest-on-chest are also displayed on one signed by Reuben Beman Jr. (b. 1772) of Kent, Connecticut.4 Both chests also have similar drawer dovetailing and backboard dovetailed to the back edges of the sides. However, construction differences between them suggest separate shop traditions. They stand as a manifestation of their makers common approach to taste in northwestern Connecticut at the turn of the 19th century.

FIG 5. Chest-on-Chest signed by Reuben Beeman, Kent, Connecticut, 1785-1805 (Edward S. Cooke Jr., “The Social Economy of the Preindustrial Joiner in Western Connecticut, 1750-1800,” American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite and William N. Hosley (Hanover and London: The Chipstone Foundation, 1995): fig. 9, p. 122).

1 Nancy Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Winterthur, DE: The Henry Francis Du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1997), p. 402-3 and Gerald Ward, American Case Furniture (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988), p. 143.
2 Illustrated in Ward, no. 63, p. 143.
3 See Frederick K. and Margaret R. Barbour’s Furniture Collection: A Supplement (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1970), pp. 14-15.
4 See Edward S. Cooke Jr., “The Social Economy of the Preindustrial Joiner in Western Connecticut, 1750-1800,” American Furniture, edited by Luke Beckerdite and William N. Hosley (Hanover and London: The Chipstone Foundation, 1995): fig. 9, p. 122.