Chest of Drawers with prospect door
Attributed to the Roanoke River Basin of Virginia.
Probably Mecklenburg or Halifax County
Birch primary; yellow pine secondary.
Circa 1775-1790
41 2/3” height by 41 ¼” width by 20 ½” depth.
Commentary: This unusual chest of drawers hails from a group of case pieces that includes desks, desks and bookcases and other chests of drawers attributed to an as yet identified shop active in the Roanoke River Basin of Virginia in the last quarter of the eighteenth century; the largest concentration of the group appears to have originated in Mecklenburg and Halifax County. These chests of drawers from the group are distinguished by having an exposed central prospect door, not unlike those found within the writing compartments of desks, flanked on either side by deep but narrow drawers, each with a front panel molded to look like two separate shallow drawers.
As of this writing, approximately a dozen other chests of drawers with prospect doors have been identified as belonging to this group. Some of the chests have prospect doors with an applied astragal molding, while the prospect door is plain but recessed on others; those with recessed prospect doors also have applied quarter columns like the one under discussion. The fact that this particular example has a prospect door that is flush with the rest of the case (like those found on several that are stylistically slightly later in date) and is constructed of birch primary while all of the others from the group were made of cherry or walnut, may represent a transition period in style and/or the work of a journeyman who had trained in the shop responsible for this distinctive regional style.
The design source responsible for this highly distinctive combination of features found on these chests of drawers was likely an English artisan who migrated to the Roanoke River Basin from Norfolk or Suffolk County in the second half of the eighteenth century. Virtually identical chests with exterior prospect doors and flanking deep drawers were commonly made in this region of Great Britain but almost nowhere else, which suggests that a cabinetmaker familiar with these specific chests of drawers was responsible for introducing this unique furniture form into the vocabulary of Mecklenburg and Halifax Counties.
Although the cabinetmaker responsible for the construction of this group is not yet known, there are two signed pieces that may provide some clues. The first is a desk and bookcase currently in the collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts that was originally owned by John Winckler (d. 1803), a Mecklenburg County silversmith; the names “James Crow” is inscribed in chalk on the bottom of one the drawer from the desk. Although no one of that name appears in the records of Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, other members of the Crow family, including John Crow and his son William, resided in Mecklenburg during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The second is a chest of drawers with an astragal-molded prospect door that bears an inscription in ink on the bottom of the top right-hand drawer that reads, “Miss Patsey Hobbses Bureau Made by William Mason February the 30th 1808” and is signed “W. Mason.” A William Mason and a Patsy Hobbs were living in Greensville County at that time, although no other records have been found listing Mason as a cabinetmaker.
Price:sold
Additional Photos
Interior Detail
