Northern European Baroque Chest of Drawers

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Made in Northern Europe around 1680, this Dutch or North German Baroque chest has spent more than three centuries becoming … Read more Made in Northern Europe around 1680, this Dutch or North German Baroque chest has spent more than three centuries becoming exactly what it is now. The oak has darkened to near tobacco; edges have softened; brass has lost its shine. What began as decoration, the wonderfully graphic procession of geometric moldings across four drawers, now feels almost modern in its abstraction.

There is something appealingly democratic about its history. This wasn’t furniture made merely to be admired. It belonged to the machinery of a household, built to hold linens, clothes and possessions, opened and closed thousands of times, and expected to endure. And endure it has.

That may be its greatest luxury today. Not rarity for rarity’s sake, but permanence: four enormous drawers, a beautiful old surface and three hundred years of evidence that it works. See less