Antique New England Chippendale Chestnut Six Drawer Tall Chest on Bracket Feet

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With our absolute highest compliments Bay Colony Antiques proudly offers this exceptional antique chest of drawers. This remarkable example belonged … Read more With our absolute highest compliments Bay Colony Antiques proudly offers this exceptional antique chest of drawers. This remarkable example belonged to the same family with the ownership being recounted as far back as the late 19th century. The family home was physically moved to a neighboring township along the Western Massachusetts - Connecticut border over a century ago and their treasured heirloom tall chest was included in the major relocation effort. According to the gentleman who had cared for this chest since his childhood in the 1950's, it is quite possible that this piece was part of the family estate as far back as the late 18th century. Without any living decedents to verify the claim or documentation from that era we are unable to state for certain just how long the tall chest had been with the same historic New England family.

This tall chest is a premier example of the country Chippendale form which began to appear in the rural communities of New England in the late 1760's before the influence quickly spread down the Atlantic Coast and into the Southern regions of the nation. Quite often these early chests can underserve the needs of their owners by being too small in scale or lacking in the rigidity required for continual daily use centuries after first being constructed. Alternatively, many tall chest can be over-built and command too large a space in the bedroom so that the room may not be enjoyed as intended with such a massive piece of case furniture consuming all of the area around it. This chest strikes a perfect balance of being both just the right size for most early historical interiors while also being large enough as to remain a practical and effective storage solution well into the future.

The chest is constructed with both chestnut and red pine native hardwoods that are often associated with furniture made in the Southern New England regions. An impressive set of exposed dovetails can be found around the top of the chest just behind the exceptional hand profiled crown molding. Each of the six drawers are over-built by nearly all standards, meaning the hand-cut joinery, chamfered drawer panel, and thickness of the drawer box as a whole was constructed too always far exceed the actual realistic storage requirements needed from a common drawer. The difference in how much additional effort went into building the chest becomes apparent when it is picked up and the full weight and density of the chest can be realized. The chest retains five of the six original embossed escutcheon plates with the lowest drawer having lost the embellishment at some point in the past. Both hand-cut tapered iron nails and rose-head fashioned nails are visible throughout the exterior of the case. The chest stands on four masterfully scrolled bracket feet which create a sophisticated design of the feet and an intriguing crown shape design in the negative space around the scrolling.

Newer bat-wing brasses were selected to replace the original set, presumably after centuries of being weakened through regular use. The chest has a few small wood losses around the molded edges of a few drawers. Overall, the chest has remained in excellent overall condition and will undoubtedly serve the needs of its new owners & future antique collectors for generations to come. The chest measures 39 1/8” wide x 19 1/2” deep x 55” tall. See less