Antique Chest Of Drawers

CHESTS OF DRAWERS (BUREAUX) AND DRESSING CHESTS (DRESSERS)
About 1890-1940
Nine-drawer oak chest designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, about 1902.
In modern American usage, a bureau is a chest of drawers; in Britain it is a slope-front desk. In the USA, a dresser is a dressing-table or dressing-chest with a mirror; in the UK it is a kitchen cupboard or country-made sideboard, usually with shelves above.
From their positions of honour in the living. room, where they were repositories of heirlooms and dowries, epitomized by the ‘bottom drawer’ in which the bride-to-be tucked away her trousseau, chests of drawers were relegated to the bedroom, eventually to become ’storage units’, oak dressing bureau by Buckley, 1890-1910: The chest of drawers survived as an independent piece of furniture, often bow-fronted with pilasters and turned feet, but was also adapted to form part of a bedroom suite as a drawing-chest (dresser) with mirror attached.
1910-25: The need to economize on living space made the bulky chest of drawers a prime candidate for rationalization.
1925-40: The Art Moderne style did little in its defence beyond lavishing expensive veneers on it. Under reformist influence, it became at first purely functional but still autonomous, until absorbed into a storage system of shelving, hanging and drawer space composed of units, either built-in or flexible, often put together by early DIY enthusiasts.
For them, a New York cabinet-maker wrote a book called How to Make Your Own Bedroom Furniture. In the first six months, it sold I I copies. The publishers changed the title to How to Do It in the Bedroom, and  dressing chest with asymmetrical Mirror came a best-seller. DIY was not really a 20thC invention. From the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, much was made by unskilled homemakers, and in the late 19thC, amateur woodwork became a cult that accounts for many otherwise inexplicable departures from the norm.
1890-1910: Mahogany, walnut, oak, used in the solid or as veneers on pine base. Drawers often lined with cedar.
1910-40: Oak, ash, walnut, mahogany, satin birch, Canary whitewood, used in the solid for drawer-fronts. Veneered plywood on softwood frames for carcases.
Custom-built pieces hand-made, mass-produced merchandise heavily reliant on machines. Some DIY artefacts remarkable for methods previously unknown and never- repeated, e.g. a highboy converted from an upright piano, the drawers assembled with screwed-on angle irons.
1890-1925: Carving, by hand or machine; mass-produced marquetry motifs, many in pseudo-Federal style, available by the dozen for insertion at furniture factory.
1925-40: Little decoration other than on reproductions and pastiches of ‘Jacobean’ (vaguely 17thC) chests of drawers with geometric mouldings and split banister turnings on drawer-fronts.
Traditional types stained dark and French polished; dressing-chests fitted with mirrors in matching frames.
Handles: Turned wood, ornate metal simulating brass or bronze.
Art Moderne types veneered in exotic woods or, if solid, limed or painted and cleaned off, leaving pigment in grain. Dressing-chest fitted with frameless, bevelled mirrors, sometimes of eccentric shape.
Handles: Wooden bars, oxidized or chromium-plated metal grips.
Late-19thC mahogany chests of drawers with cedar drawer-linings a good buy for those who like their rich, heavy look. Good examples of Art Moderne highly priced, poor ones not worth having.
Many a late-19thC chest of drawers with bow front, heavy pilasters, turned feet and wooden knobs has been made into a Federal type by removing the pilasters, reducing the width, replacing the turned feet with brackets and the wooden knobs with reproduction brass handles.

CHESTS AND CHESTS OF DRAWERS. HIGHBOYS
About 1790-1890
Right, Federal mahogany and birch-veneered bow-front chest of drawers, about 1810-1820.
Neo-classical principles dominate for 50 years, to be followed by eclecticism for the next 50; all the while, ethnic minorities preserve their heritage and religious communities reject worldly extravagance.
Federal, 1790-1810: Published designs of Hepplewhite and Sheraton favour chests of drawers with bow or serpentine fronts, commodes of half-round shape. Noted makers; McIntire, Seymour, both of Boston.
Revivals, 1840-90: Louis XV/XVI commodes copies. Massive, mass-produced chests of drawers, commodious but inelegant. Noted makers: Meeks, New York.
Shaker, best period 1790-1840: Chests of drawers with flush fronts, flush or panelled ends, turned or slightly tapered feet, wooden knobs (brass handles rejected as vain and sinful); blanket chests, box type, sometimes with one or two drawers below, were commoner in northern than in western communities. Tall, slim, six-drawer chests made by Massachusetts communities.
Above, Federal inlaid maple bow-front chest of drawers, about 1790-1815.
Empire, 1810-40: Flat fronts flanked by columns or pilasters. Top drawer often projects slightly. Many simplified country versions. Noted makers: Belter, Lannuier, both of New York.
Above, Shaker cherrywood sewing chest, about 1820-1830.
Gothic, 1790-1860: French Provincial commodes made in Quebec recall Louis XV styles but are in solid wood, as distinct from veneered New York reproductions.
Above, painted pine dower chest, Pennsylvania, 1794.
Through tenon Construction with the end exposed.
Californian chests of drawers show strong Spanish influence in use of through-tenons for joining rails to stiles. Pennsylvania German chests with painted decoration and inscriptions often bear late-18th and early-19thC dates.
Sophisticated types: Mahogany, rosewood, maple, satinwood.
Country types: Oak, pine, poplar, walnut, butternut.
Sophisticated types: Very fine cabinetmaking in Federal and early Empire periods, giving way to machine work in mid-19thC. (For methods of shaping bow and serpentine drawer-fronts, see TABLES AND SIDEBOARDS, 1790-1840, p. 323).
Country types: Traditional joinery, varying from one area to another, e.g. through-tenons, California (see STYLE AND APPEARANCE above).
Sophisticated types: Carving confined to details, leaving main surfaces free for veneering, marquetry, painting.
Country types: Mostly plain but some ethnic communities painted flowers, birds, in bright colours.
Sophisticated types: French polished. Country types: Oiled and waxed, varnished or painted.
Fine Federal highboys and chests of drawers so obviously valuable, they can hardly help commanding big prices. Simple late-Empire pieces much more reasonable. Good Shaker and country types very collectable; their unpretentiousness makes a boot sale bargain possible but improbable.
Late-19thC Shaker decoration above traditionally plain chest.
After 1840, Shaker design gradually succumbed to the hunger for excessive decoration, and by 1890 some pieces were sporting fretwork galleries and fussy turnings; a late piece could thus be rejected as too
decorative to be genuine. Conversely, plain pieces have recently been reproduced, so beware the Shaker faker.

CHESTS AND CHESTS OF DRAWERS. HIGHBOYS AND LOWBOYS.
About 1700-1790
A Queen Anne walnut lowboy, about 1750-1760.
As the 18thC begins, the joiner’s lidded chest and the panelled chest of drawers continue to be made, but mainly in country districts; in the larger towns their place is taken by cabinet-makers’ pieces with flush surfaces.
William and Mary, 1690-1725: Chests of drawers on turned feet, lowboys with cyma scrolled kneeholes and turned legs, highboys that are essentially chests of drawers on stands resembling lowboys. Half-round
mouldings on edges of frames.
Queen Anne, 1725-60: Similar to William and Mary but with bracket feet on chests, cabriole legs on lowboys and highboys. The Mahogany block-front chest of drawers, Boston, finest highboys have bonnet tops. No
half-round mouldings on frames.
Chippendale, 1760-90: Despite the name attached to this period, neither the block and shell fronts of the Newport, Rhode Island, chest of drawers, nor the curvaceous kettle base type in which Boston specialized, owes very much to Chippendale’s designs. English highboys and lowboys were usually less elaborate and seldom  if ever  made to match, as they frequently were in America, where versions of the chest-on-chest (double chest of drawers) were also more complex than their English counterparts.
William and Mary, Queen Anne: Walnut or curly maple veneers on foundation of pine; solid walnut cabriole legs; oak, pine, poplar and cedar used for drawer-linings.
Chippendale: Mahogany, maple used in the solid and in veneers, walnut and cherry in the solid. Secondary woods as above.
Ends of carcases not panelled but built up with boards glued edge to edge (’rub’ joint), or made from a single wide board of solid mahogany or pine. Back panelled or boarded. Drawers with fine dovetail joints; no
grooves at sides  they run on strips of wood glued to bottoms. Great variety in drawer arrangements of lowboys, the number varying from one to seven.
Construction of flush-ended chest end: boards glued together for width, then dovetailed.
William and Mary: Chests of drawers plain; legs of lowboys and highboys are turned to trumpet and cup shapes, and united by flat, curving stretchers.
Queen Anne: Chests of drawers plain; highboys and lowboys have cabriole legs carved with shells on knees, Dutch (pad) or Spanish (paintbrush) feet; highboys are surmounted by scrolled pediments (bonnet tops).
Chippendale: Rococo carving, especially in kneeholes of Philadelphia lowboys and highboys, influenced by Chippendale’s Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers’ Director, first published in 1754 in London, where cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet were already out of fashion while continuing to be popular in America until about 1780.
William and Mary, Queen Anne: Veneers of walnut, curly maple. Japanning in gilt on black ground in imitation of oriental lacquer.
Chippendale: Mahogany sometimes used as veneer especially on shaped drawer-fronts, e.g. kettle base chests of drawers. Brass handles and keyhole escutcheons.
Highboys command high prices, those with bonnet tops and carved detail highest of all. Lowboys vary according to quality and condition, but are usually expensive. Large, plain chests of drawers are much cheaper than small, decorative examples.
Brass keyhole escutcheon plate, early-18thC.
A Chippendale-style mahogany dressing-table, Philadelphia. about 1779.
VENEER
Many plain, solid chests of drawers have been promoted to a higher price bracket by veneering them. The thickness of the veneer can be seen by examining the back edge of the top. In the 18thC veneers were saw-cut and much thicker than the modern knife-cut, paper-thin kind; but do not jump to conclusions either way. Even in the 18thC, the veneer was often not more than V16inches/1.5 mm thick before sanding down, and many pieces have been drastically cleaned off in the name of refurbishment, leaving them suspiciously thin. A thick veneer is not in itself a guarantee of authenticity. It may have been cannibalized  stripped from an old piece of little value  or it may be relatively new; saw-cut veneers are still available. Nevertheless, taken with other evidence, the relative thickness of veneers can be a useful guide.
This type of chest of drawers often veneered later in walnut or maple to increase the value.

AMERICAN CHESTS AND CHESTS OF DRAWERS
About 1600-1700
The box-like chest, serving as a crate or travelling trunk, is one of the few pieces of furniture brought with them by the Pilgrim Fathers. By 1660, panelled chests were being made with drawers below the box; their number increased until they occupied the whole space, and the top was no longer hinged. The chest became the chest of drawers.
Chests and chests of drawers of 17thC type continued to be made in country districts well into the 18thC as indicated by the overlapping dates of this section and the next.
Before 1675, angular forms decorated in Anglo-Dutch Renaissance and baroque styles. New England types with regional differences then appear (see DECORATION below). Known makers include: W. Searle and T. Dennis of Ipswich, J. Allis and S. Belding of Hadley and Hatfield, Massachusetts; P. Blin of Wethersfield, Connecticut.
Oak, tulipwood; wide pine boards for lids of chests, linings of chests of drawers.
Boarded (or plank)chest: Simple type, the boards nailed to edges of ends.
Panelled chest: Panels bevelled at edges and inserted into rebates (rabbets, rabbits) in frame joined by mortise-and-tenon joints
Above, boarded construction, splits in wood.
secured with pegs. Lid not panelled  solid board(s) moulded on edge.
Panelled chest of drawers: Ends as for chests, above. Top fixed with nails, pegs or blocks glued inside. Back boarded or panelled.
Drawers assembled with nails and/or crude dovetails, grooves cut in sides to run on runners nailed to frame.
Drawer with grooves for side runners.
Chests, before 1675: Flat carving of foliage. Regional differences then develop.
After 1675, Hadley, Massachusetts: Flat carving of tulips, palm leaves, covering whole of front  frame as well as panels.
Hartford    County, Connecticut: Carved sunflowers and applied split turnings.
Chests of drawers, from 1675: Essex County, Massachusetts: Drawer-fronts moulded on edges and divided into small areas by split turnings, also applied to stiles (see SEATS 1690 to 1725, p. 294).
A painted and ebonised and pine chest about 1675-1710.
Handles: Iron, or wood painted black. Wood handles turned or shaped to an oval and set at an angle (’turtle-back’).
Painting and staining in black, red and blue with local or imported pigments used at first mainly to decorate carving but, in some districts, replacing it by 1700. Split turnings painted black to imitate ebony.
American chests and chests of drawers pre-1740 are rare and expensive, but some have made a trip to the UK and got lost. A 17thC English oak chest was seldom carved all over its front like the Hadley type; neither did it have a pine top. Such features might be treated by English buyers as evidence of later carving and a replaced top. They might be right, but you could get lucky.
Below panelled construction: panel moues freely ill rebate.