Dressing table,

ca. 1760

American furniture in the Chippendale style, named for the London cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale(1718–1779), is characterized by robust, curvilinear, often elaborately carved forms. This high chest of drawers and dressing table are rare paired survivals from Philadelphia. The finials and scroll-top pediment of the high chest create an upward visual thrust that, in combination with the graduated drawer sizes and rising design of the carved decoration and original brasses, lends an appealing air of lightness to the imposing form. Traditional scholarship on colonial American furniture has focused on formal analysis and connoisseurship to determine maker, place and date of manufacture, and quality. Recent consideration of the environmental history of materials such as mahogany has expanded understanding of these objects, revealing them to be products of far-flung trade networks, enslaved labor, and the excessive harvesting of trees in the Caribbean, which led to their endangerment.