RARE DIMINUTIVE CHIPPENDALE INLAID CHERRYWOOD SERPENTINE-FRONT CHEST OF DRAWERS, New England, possibly Connecticut, circa 1795

Mrs. Alice Doscher, Huntington, Long Island;
Private New York Collection.

Retains a warm mellow color. Three bail brasses are replacements with Londonderry reproduction brasses (third drawer left bail, both bails on bottom drawer). The escutcheon on the bottom drawer appears to be a very early replacement. Shrinkage crack emanating from left side (8") and right side (6") of top have been filled. A square patch 1 1/8" applied to surface of right side of top drawer. A 2" section of loss to cockbeading surround at lower right corner of top drawer and a 7/8" repair to bottom of left side front foot facing was restored . Abrasion loss to front left and front right foot facings. Bottom 1 ¾" of right rear and left facings are old replacements. Due to normal shrinkage and the vertically oriented case sides, drawers at the top protruded, causing the horizontal backboards to be pushed out. A shim was added to the right rear side of the case to accommodate this loss, permitting the drawers to be housed correctly. Drawer abrasion has caused some areas of loss to pencil inscription on lower surface of interior case.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This early chest is distinguished by its small size (case width 32 ¾”), graceful serpentine front together with drawer fronts embellished with inlay stringing and dramatic quarter fans.  Constructed of cherry, it is smaller in scale than most furniture from Boston, Newport or Philadelphia, and relates stylistically to furniture attributed to Hartford County shops including those that lay outside Hartford County proper and extending to Western Massachusetts. Although the inlay stringing and corner fan decoration is characteristic of the region during this period,¹ the maker of the present chest created an additional element of striking visual drama by enlarging the scale of each drawer’s set of five-lobed quarter fans, to correspond to the graduating drawer size.  This feature of graduating quarter fans is extremely rare.

Price books for furniture from Hartford, Connecticut (1792), and Hatfield, Massachusetts (1796), use the term bureau to identify a chest-of-drawers, though both terms appear in New England records through the end of the century, and sometimes together.² The aesthetic vocabulary of the present example relates to a serpentine-front bureau in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society Museum, signed by Erastus Grant and dated 1799.³   Documented as one of the earliest such examples in New England, the drawer fronts are decorated with inlay stringing and light and darkwood four-lobed quarter fans. Unlike the present example, the serpentine faςade of the Grant bureau is faced with cherry veneer rather than shaping the drawer front from the solid, the cock bead is applied, and the case is supported by plain bracket feet. The bracket feet on both examples have a small spur on the shaped return, typically found on Hartford-area ogee feet of the period.

Four other examples featuring related decorative string inlay with inlaid corner fans include a tall-case clock in the collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art.  The Albany Institute example bears a carved inscription “E Grant” as well as a “Loomis and Pelton” label.⁴  A second HartfordCountybowfront bureau in a private collection carries a chalk inscription: “Decr.12^th 1803 / E. Williams E. Windsor”.⁵   The others include aNorthampton,Massachusetts area chest-of-drawers constructed of cherry⁶ and a mahogany chest-of-drawers from the George Dudley Seymour’s Furniture Collection in the Connecticut Historical Society.⁷  All of the above chests, however, lack the drama created by the graduating scale of quarter fan inlay as featured on the present example.

¹  Thomas P. Kugelman and Alice K. Kugelman with Robert Lionetti, Connecticut Valley Furniture Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800, (Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut Historical Society Museum, 2005), p.395.
²  Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, (Delaware: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc., 1997), p.355.
³  Kugelman, et al, p.399,no.184.
⁴  Ibid, p.400.  Both Simeon Loomis (1767-1865) and Enoch Pelton (1770-1829) came from East Windsor, Connecticut, and worked in partnership, in Lansingburgh (present day Troy, New York), from about 1794 to around 1799.  Erastus Grant, who worked as a journeyman in Lansingburgh before opening his own shop inWestfield,Massachusetts, would have known Loomis from this association.
⁵  Ibid, p.395. no.182.
⁶  Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield, (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.), p.197. no.406.
⁷  The Connecticut Historical Society Catalogue No.2 (1958), p.49.