High chest on frame

1750-1770

Measurements

64 in x 41-1/2 in x 22-1/2 in

Materials

Maple; tulip poplar (drawer sides and backs), white cedar (drawer bottoms, rear boards), white pine (full dustboards), hard pine (top board of case, drawer guides)

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation, The David Wilson Mansion, Inc.

Accession Number

1971.563

Provenance

The chest on frame was bequeathed by Dr. and Mrs. J. Newberry Reynolds to The David Wilson Mansion, Inc.

Comments

The striped maple used throughout this chest on frame makes it scintillate.  Remarkably, it has a near twin that, fortunately, has a history of ownership in Burlington County, NJ, suggesting where this object might have been made.  (See Thomas Smith Hopkins and Walter Scott Cox, Colonial Furniture of West New Jersey [Haddonfield, N.J.: Historical Society of Haddonfield, 1936], pp. 8–9, 14–15, 18–21.]  Otherwise, its several features--such as "sock" feet, dovetails with wedges driven into them to hold them fast, drawer bottoms set into rabbets cut into the undersides of the drawer sides, and wood spring locks securing each of the small top drawers--were too widespread to localize where the chest was made.  It survives in excellent condition, including original brasses.

Bibliography

Zimmerman, A Storied Past, 119-120.