A Fine and Rare Chippendale Mahogany Dressing Table Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1760-75

A Fine and Rare Chippendale Mahogany Dressing Table Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1760-75 Single-board top with thumb-molded edge and double-round front corners, overhanging all four sides of case with solid mahogany ends and yellow pine backboard, draw-joined with three pegs to the continuous stiles of four cabriole legs, those in front having fluted quarter-columns indented at corners, flanking a facade of through-tenoned mahogany rails and dividers framing one long drawer over row of two short square drawers and one large rectangular drawer, intaglio-carved with a shell in punch-decorated dished reserve, the eight tapered flutes radiating from a flower mounted with brass knob at the base, the shell centered by applied relief-carved foliate C-scrolls, all four drawers with mahogany fronts dovetailed to yellow pine and poplar cases, retaining fine original pierced brasses, over an apron rail and returns intricately carved with complex cyma curves, the case raised on four full cabriole legs terminating in spurred claw-and-ball feet, those in front with shell-carved knees, 91cm wide, 53cm deep, 78cm high (36 1/2in wide, 21 1/2in deep, 31 5/8in high). Footnotes: Provenance Property from a Mid-Atlantic Estate. Property from a Connecticut Family, Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver and Prints, Live Auction 16796, Christie's, New York, New York (18 January 2019), Lot 1241. Property of a Long Island, New York, Private Collector, Important Americana, Sale 6763, Sotheby's, New York, New York, (22 October 1995), Lot 30. Leigh Keno American Antiques, New York, New York. Property from the Collection of the Late Cecil F. Backus, Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Folk Paintings, Sale 6350, Sotheby's, New York, New York (25 October 1992), Lot 270. Cecil Franklin Backus (1885-1966), of Portsmouth, Virginia; Wilmington, Delaware; and Easton, Maryland. Literature This table has been attributed to an anonymous Philadelphia craftsman identified as the 'Spikey Leaf Carver' ('Spike' for short). Comparable works include the Gratz family dressing table at Winterthur Museum, Delaware (acc. no. 1957.0505), the Lawrence family high chest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (acc. no. 18.110.6), and the Wistar family desk and bookcase at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania (acc. no. 1929-178-1). Similar shell-carved drawers appear on furniture associated with the Philadelphia craftsmen Benjamin Randolph, Henry Cliffton, Thomas Carteret, Nicholas Bernard, Hercules Courtenay, John Elliott, and John Pollard; these include a signed 1753 high chest and dressing table at Colonial Williamsburg (acc. no. 1975-154, 1993-130), the Van Pelt family high chest at Winterthur (acc. no. 1957.0506), and tables in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC (acc. no. RR-1973.0065, RR-1980.0026). Also see the dressing table sold in Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, Sale 2584, Christie's, New York (24 September 2012), Lot 41; the Benjamin Marshall high chest formerly in collections of E.G. Nicholson and the Chipstone Foundation, sold in Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver and Prints, Live Auction no. 1521, Christie's, New York (19 May 2005), Lot 109; and a side chair from the collection of Mr. & Mrs. George P. Bissell, Jr., sold in Americana & International, Session Two, Pook & Pook, Downingtown, Pennsylvania, (10 October 2020), Lot 720. Comparable furniture published in Luke Beckerdite, 'The Concept of Copying in the Eighteenth-Century Carving Trade,' American Furniture (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 2020): p. 96, figs. 10-11; Charles F. Hummel, A Winterthur Guide to American Chippendale Furniture: Middle Atlantic and Southern Colonies (New York: Crown Publishers, 1976), p. 91, 118; Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York: Viking Press, 1952), cat. no. 333; Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art II, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), cat. no. 163-7; and catalogue entries by Alan T. Miller and Thomas S. Michie in Clement E. Conger, Treasures of State (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), cat. no. 28-9. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing