Chippendale Figured Mahogany Block-Front Chest of Drawers

Object Details

Related Objects

Chippendale Figured Mahogany Shell-and-Block Chest of Drawers

Townsend, John
ca. 1770-1790

wood; mahogany; yellow-poplar; chestnut; southern yellow pine

Chippendale Figured Mahogany Block-and-Shell Chest of Drawers

Townsend, John
ca. 1760-1770

wood; mahogany; eastern white pine; yellow-poplar

Object Essay

Referred to collectively in the mid-18th century as “swelled” chests or “cases” of drawers, the forms of blockfront, serpentine, reverse-serpentine, and bombé furniture are differentiated today by the configuration of their shaped facades.^{1_{For period terminology, see Jobe and Kaye, 144.}} The style was a specialty of cabinetmakers in the Boston area, where the earliest surviving blockfront facade occurs on a desk and bookcase made by Job Coit in 1738. The taste for such chests quickly spread to Rhode Island, Connecticut, and elsewhere in New England and New York.^{2_{For the origins and development of blockfront furniture, see Lovell, 77–135.}}

The considerable expense of furniture with either rounded or flattened blocking was due to the additional time required to shape the graduated drawer fronts from solid wood, as well as to the quantity of imported mahogany that was discarded in the process. In this sense, swelled case furniture embodies the conspicuous consumption of Boston’s mercantile elite. On this chest, the shaping of the lower two drawer fronts has interrupted the tangential growth rings, thus creating the dramatic figure of the grain that accentuates the costly brass drawer pulls. The absence of a giant dovetail to secure the bottom board to the front of the case and the restrained outline of the ornamental knee brackets, however, set this chest apart from other examples signed or otherwise documented by the leading Boston area cabinetmakers.

Compared to blockfront furniture made in Newport (see Acc. Nos. 71.86 and 75.2), the internal construction of Boston case furniture reveals a consistently lower level of workmanship. Such workmanship was often a necessity in large urban cabinet shops striving to meet private commissions, stock the floor of the ware rooms, and in the case of more enterprising cabinetmakers, furnish venture cargo destined for more lucrative, coastal trade. 

Thomas S. Michie

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.