Very Rare Carved Cherrywood Block-Front Bonnet-Top High Chest of Drawers, Connecticut River Valley, Circa 1785

Leigh Keno American Antiques, New York.

This exuberantly carved high chest is a rare survival of blockfront shell-carved furniture from the Connecticut River Valley with a unique design influenced by contemporary Massachusetts and Rhode Island furniture.

Philip Zimmerman conducted an analysis of a related desk and concluded that its shallow blocking is similar to that found on the upper case drawer fronts of a cherry chest-on-chest with a history of descent in the Trumbull family of Norwich, Connecticut.¹ Other pieces with related shallow blocking include a cherry chest of drawers with a history in the Sheldon family of Deerfield and a high chest inscribed "Lancaster, Massachusetts" once owned by the Honorable John Chandler (1720-1800) of Petersham, Massachusetts.²

¹ Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture, New York, 1950, p. 145 and William Voss Elder III and Jayne Stokes, American Furniture, 1680-1880, 1987, no. 54, p. 80.

² Replica Shoes ’s, New York, January 29, 1994, The Bertram K. Little and Nina Fletcher Little Collection, sale 6526, lots 428 and 429 and The Great River: Art and Society of the Connecticut Valley, 1635-1850, 1985, no. 104, p. 223.