This chest is part of a group of relatively late Mannerist examples that feature double-paneled ends and cleated hinged tops. The applied moldings on the front panels define a variety of angular geomet­ric shapes: octagons, squares, and cruciforms. Elongated spindles with multiple ringed turnings in the upper section also are typical.

Technical notes: Materials of oak and pine (secondary wood) not analyzed micro­scopically. The side-hung drawer is made with two dovetails, and the grain of the drawer bottom is parallel to the front. The bottom is nailed all around. The drawer sides are half-­lapped to the backboard and nailed. The backboard is a beveled panel above the drawer. The stylized Tudor roses of the rail and the two flanking front panels have been laid out with a compass. The roses and wavy grain-painted ornament on the stiles and rails ap­pear to be contemporaneous with the chest. The grain-painted ornament on the sides and the central panel of the front are nineteenth-century embellishments.

Related examples: MFA, Boston (Randall 1965, no. 12); Wadsworth (Nutting 1962, no. 45); Forman 1970, fig. 6, is an earlier example. The six-sided panels here relate to the design seen on a group of North Shore toilet tables (see B.70.24).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.