Thomas Sheraton describes a bureau as “in French, a small chest of drawers,” a term that Americans embraced rather than the English expression “dressing chest.” The bureau was produced with a variety of shaped fronts as recorded in the cabinetmakers’ price books, including straight, serpentine, and, as seen here, round. The craftsmen working in New Hampshire and Maine’s Piscataqua region masterfully juxtaposed mahogany and contrasting birch veneers to create one of the most visually arresting facades in American Neoclassical furniture. An added regional refinement is the characteristic drop-panel pendant.  

Technical notes: Mahogany (veneer on feet and drawers), birch (top and sides stained to resemble mahogany, drawer fronts), birch (veneer); eastern white pine. The combination mahogany and birch as primary woods appears to be typical, as evidenced by the Portsmouth cabinetmaker Ebenezer Lord’s 1827 advertisement that he makes “Mahogany Bureaus—birch ends and tops with mahogany fronts.” The foot blocks conform to the leg profile. The lowest drawer is flush with the bottom. The third drawer down and the top drawer receive additional support by braces attached to the back. The second drawer from the top has almost a full dust board with only a spacer near the front. The escutcheons are original, the pulls replacements.  

Related examples: Similar chests in museum collections include Sprague 1987, pp. 185–86, no. 98; Jobe et al. 1993, pp. 114–15, no. 11.  

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.