Label Type
Object LabelLabel
Chest of drawers, 1800-1810
coastal New England, possibly Boston
mahogany and mahogany veneers, contrasting inlays, pine secondary wood
Gift of the estate of George Addison Emery
Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
This chest of drawers is noteworthy in its consistent use of three elements that are hallmarks of the neoclassical or Federal period in American decorative arts and architecture: attenuation, shallow surface decoration through the use of contrasting wood inlays, and the presence of the oval shape throughout the piece.
Attenuation refers to the lengthening or stretching of a piece of furniture, other objects, or decoration. In this case, the outward splay of the French feet draws upward movement into the case where the verticality is emphasized by five graduated drawers instead of four deeper ones and a thin top that caps but does not weigh down the piece with a heavy cornice molding. The shallow surface decoration of inlaid banding around the front and sides of the top and also near the bottom of the case uses contrasting light and dark areas with light colored stringing above and below to catch the eye and lead it upward while creating movement and interest on the surface of the piece. Lastly, the entire chest of drawers is built around the favored shape of the period, the oval. The curve of the front of the case reflects an oval rather than a circle as does the arch in the case sides between the front and back feet. The pattern of the shaped skirt consists of three half ovals and lastly the design of the brass hardware features oval-within-oval back plates and the handles themselves are half ovals.
In the period, bowfront chests of drawers were very popular and made throughout New England. At times they were described as “swel’d” or “bow’d, but these terms can also refer to other types of chests. The maker of this piece remains unidentified although one possibility is the furniture workshop run by John and Thomas Seymour in Boston. While the top-of-the-line furniture produced by the Seymours has been well-studied for many years, the mid-level pieces, such as this chest, have not, leaving a considerable group not presently attributed to their shop. Construction details in this piece that are representative of the work of the Seymours include French feet angled out slightly at the bottom, very thin drawer sides, and simple crossbanding outlined with light and dark string inlay around the front and sides of the lower portion of the chest. The side foot brackets and shaped skirt between them are made from one continuous piece of mahogany, consistent with the common construction techniques for French feet employed by the Seymours.
The donor, George Addison Emery, was a descendant of Thomas Gilbert Thornton (1768-1824) and Sarah Cutts Thornton (1774-1845) who married in 1793. One of the most well-known Seymour pieces descended from the Thorntons to Emery who sold it to the firm of Flayderman and Kaufman in the 1920s. It was later purchased by Henry Francis du Pont and is in the collection of the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. It is likely that the Thorntons patronized the Seymour shop for other furnishings.