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 [...]
CHESTS OF DRAWERS: VENEERED
About 1680-1740 Walnut
The art of veneering was introduced to England by Dutch and Flemish craftsmen working in and around London during the Restoration period.
Generally three long drawers below two short. Most with over-hanging top, formed at first by a cornice, later ovolo or thumb moulding. Later pieces occasionally with caddy top (i.e. [...]
CHESTS on turned stands
The distinction between chests on stands and chests which merely had bun feet to support them is that broadly speaking apart from the round holes for the buns at the four corners of the bottom of the chest, the former did not have veneered tops while the latter did. Our ancestors were [...]
CHESTS OF DRAWERS - 1690-1720
A very fine oyster veneered chest of drawers on bun feet which are a bit small in proportion. Parquetry work of this kind, involving geometric designs made up from small oyster veneers, requires a high degree of skill. Note the ‘thumbnail’ top edge moulding and deep proportion. Just short of 2ft. [...]
CHESTS early oak with moulded fronts
A less decorated example, illustrated with one lower door open to show the three drawers fitted in the lower part. Many of the mouldings and applied split balusters are made of fruit-wood which would originally have been ebonised. The piece is typically Anglo-Dutch and the ivory and pearl inlay, of [...]
CHESTS AND CHESTS OF DRAWERS
Chests, often referred to as coffers, were very important until the mid-seventeenth century and were still made in quantity throughout the eighteenth century. They were about the only form of storage for most people.
The earliest form of chest was probably a hollowed-out tree trunk with a crude lid. By the thirteenth [...]
Military chest
1. Made of solid mahogany, cedarwood, camphorwood or padouk wood.
2. Cast-brass backplates
recessed into drawer fronts with square, flush-fitting, hinged drawer handles. Brass corners and reinforcements set flush into the wood, secured with countersunk screws.
3. Flush escutcheons, locks with brass cases and brass levers.
4. All sides of chest in solid wood built like a trunk, [...]
Bow-fronted chest of drawers
1. Fine, well-figured solid mahogany with well-matched mahogany veneer on drawer fronts.
2. Oak-lined drawers to c.1800 with slim cockbeaded outline and plain swan-necked drawer handles. Oval backplates from C.1810.
3. Delicate, double or triple reeding or thumb moulding to sides of the top on the overhang. Plain back edge is flush with backing [...]
Carolean chest of drawers
1. Mellow, rich colour of timber, hardened with age.
2. Graining, rippling and figuring of wood where it has been split or quarter-sawn, rather than cut as planks.
3. Base should show signs of heavy wear, knocking and `fraying’ of timber.
4. Applied moulding and decoration, cut from single piece of wood with continuous graining, [...]