Chest of drawers on stand. Delaware River Valley, possibly Philadelphia c. 1715. Black walnut, hard pine, Atlantic white cedar, brass, iron. The legs and stretchers of the stand are replaced. Wood caps at the corners and cock beading that would have been nailed to arch cutouts in the bottom rail are missing. Brass pulls and escutcheons are replacements. Freeman’s / Hindman photo.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. The stand is a dovetailed box. It’s unclear why the joiner who was competent making dovetailed boxes for the drawers and stand continued to use frame-and-panel construction for the chest. The combination of dovetailed-box stand and framed case appears incongruous.
A chest on stand in an upcoming Freeman’s / Hindman auction shares several construction and design features with three chests of drawers signed by the Philadelphia and New Jersey joiner William Beakes III (1691-1761.) Several other chests of drawers have been attributed to Beakes based on characteristics shared with the signed work but no other furniture forms besides chests have been found with his signature or can be attributed to him. While I am not attributing the chest on stand to Beakes at this time, there are enough similarities to suggest how Beakes might have approached designing a chest on stand.
Chest of drawers. New Jersey, c. 1720. William Beakes III. Black walnut, hard pine, Atlantic white cedar, brass, iron. Dietrich American Foundation. Feet are reduced, brass pulls and escutcheons are replaced. The three signed Beakes chest all have singe pulls on the top short drawers and no false escutcheons. The Freeman’s / Hindman chest has paired pulls and false escutcheons on the short drawers of the top tier. All four chests employ spring locks in the top tier drawers.
One construction feature that distinguishes the work of Beakes is that his chest frames are not dovetailed boxes but are frame-and-panel joined, an earlier way of working that had been superseded in London by the 1670s when flat dovetailed box carcases and flat drawer fronts allowed the application of figured wood veneers in various patterns and designs. In the American colonies, Boston and other New England style centers produced case work of veneered dovetailed boxes, while in Philadelphia, veneered case work is essentially nonexistent with highly figured solid drawer fronts mimicking veneer work as can be seen in the furniture from John Head’s shop.
High chest of drawers. Boston, Massachusetts, c. 1725. White pine, burl veneer, maple, brass, iron. Winterthur Museum. Winterthur photo. In Boston, veneered case work in the first quarter of the eighteenth century was common.High chest. Probably Philadelphia, Penn., c. 1725. Black walnut, white oak, Atlantic white cedar, brass, iron. Philadelphia joiners substituted solid figured wood drawer fronts and lapped dovetail drawer fronts to simulate veneering.
A few joiners, both in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, continued to produce frame-and-panel chest carcases well into the 1730s. If clients continued to purchase work in this older style, joiners did not have to update their design and change construction habits learned during their apprenticeships, even though switching to a dovetailed box carcase would have been an easy adjustment for Beakes and any other joiner making frame-and panel carcases. Their dovetailed drawers were just a scaled down version of a dovetailed carcase.
Chest of drawers on stand. Delaware River Valley, probably Philadelphia, c. 1715. Black walnut, hard pine, Atlantic white cedar, brass, iron. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Stands with three legs are made with mortise and tenon construction that feel more harmonious with a frame-and-panel chest.Chest of drawers in two parts. Delaware River Valley, probably Philadelphia, c. 1720. Black walnut, hard pine, Atlantic white cedar, light and dark wood inlay, brass, iron. The few two-part chest of drawers from the region all are made with frame-and-panel construction. Chipstone Collection.
Beakes apprenticed in Philadelphia with the joiner William Till (1676-1711) who was born in England and is thought to have immigrated to Philadelphia c. 1700. It is presumed that Beakes’ worked in the manner he learned from Till. No furniture has ever been attributed to Till who died relatively young. Could the chest on stand possibly shed light on the work of Till if not of Beakes?
A number of years ago, another four leg chest on stand passed through Freeman’s with the same three arch front lower rail but with a double arch side and a dovetailed box construction for the chest carcase. Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. The cornice moulding is more elaborate than on any of the Beakes chests.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. The mid-moulding and drawer of the stand. Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s/ Hindman. The side panel and applied moulding. Exactly as Beakes made his side panels, but others did as well. It is also found on the backs of many wainscot chairs of the time.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s/ Hindman. As on other framed chests the top is pegged to the frame below and the mitered moulding is nailed on so that no end grain is exposed.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. Consistent on all local framed chests, thin dust boards sit below the drawer dividers with and hard pine running strips applied at the sides. Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. The drawer construction is similar to that of the Beakes chests. All the drawers have flush nailed on bottoms. The angle of the dovetails are as dramatic as on the Beakes chests.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. The shop marks for identifying the alignment of drawer parts are similar to those on the Beakes chests, large numerals at the interior surface corners.Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. As on the Beakes chests, there are wedged dovetails. Chest of drawers on stand at Freeman’s / Hindman. Wedged dovetails are also visible of the primary surfaces of the stand.Chest of drawers on stand. Delaware River Valley c. 1715. Black walnut, hard pine, Atlantic white cedar, brass, iron. Freeman’s / Hindman photo.
The chest on stand is certainly a plain object whose distinction is elevated by well designed classical moulding profiles and pleasing grain on the drawer fronts. With the legs and stretcher system lost and the brass replaced the estimate of $1,200 – $2,200 is fair but may well trend upwards of that when it is sold on Tuesday – that’s a lot of solid wood early eighteenth century furniture. But the great fun for me is thinking about what the missing legs looked like, drawing and playing with the many possibilities and imagining it whole again.
In Proportion to the Trouble 