Philadelphia’s familial and commercial relationship with Annapolis and Baltimore has long complicated the identification of Maryland’s Rococo furniture. Elements previously thought to indicate a Maryland origin include the carved shell pendant, fluted, chamfered corners terminating in a lamb’s-tongue carving, and the vertically oriented pediment, although all of these can also be perceived in early Philadelphia Rococo furniture. By contrast, the earliest drawer arrangement of Philadelphia high chests was probably patterned after their New England counterparts (see B.69.348).

Technical notes: Black-mangrove; black cherry (interior drawer partitions), Atlantic white cedar (drawer bottoms, upper case top), yellow-poplar (drawer sides and backs, back boards), black walnut (interior corner glue blocks), eastern white pine (pediment blocks). The chest is constructed with full dustboards and partitions. The bottom and bonnet are fully enclosed. The rest of the assembly is handled in the typical manner. The drawers are numbered in pencil. The lower case top extends to the back of the chest. The brasses appear to be original.

Related examples: A high chest signed and dated by the Philadelphia cabinetmaker Henry Clifton in 1753 exhibits a number of similarities with the Bayou Bend high chest (Heckscher and Bowman 1992, pp. 182, 199). A dressing table matching the Clifton high chest was sold at Christie’s, New York, sale 7710, June 23, 1993, lot 218. Other high chests are recorded in Moore 1903, p. 140; Moon 1908, pp. 178–79; Eberlein and McClure 1914, pi. xvm, fig. 6; American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, sale 3878, January 8–10, 1931, lot 396; Antiques 89 (June 1966), p. 774; Naeve 1978, p. 14; Monkhouse and Michie 1986, p. 82, no. 28.

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.