Chippendale Chest on Chest (Former Title)
Chest on Chest (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Thomas Affleck (?) (Artist)
Hercules Courtenay (?) (Artist)
As the principal port of entry in mid- to late-18th-century America, Philadelphia boasted a large number of British-born cabinetmakers versed in Thomas Chippendale’s famous pattern book, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754; 3rd ed. 1762). The migration of talented craftsmen coincided with the production of the chest-on-chest, an updated variation on the earlier high chest that became popular among fashionable colonial elites. Employing English cabinetmaking techniques, the unknown maker of this chest included au courant details like quarter columns, Chinese fretwork, dentil molding, and an elegant pediment composed of a scrolled and pierced tympanum. Topped by a rare urn-and-flower finial, this elegant interpretation of Chippendale’s design is linked to a handful of other Philadelphia works displaying the same signature motif. This chest-on-chest may have descended in the family of local silversmith Thomas Shields and his wife, Lydia Morris.
Lent by The Dietrich American Foundation
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