Another Essex County chest with drawer is coming up at an auction next month in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Bob Trent sent me a note about it - turns out it’s one I posted here in old photos earlier this year. https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/northern-essex-county-1-drawer-chest-dated-1685-350-c-0ea4cbcb8a?objectID=193729879&algIndex=upcoming_lots_lotNumber_asc_prod&queryID=f9940742edb8e5764b0f4984096be9d0
First thing I want to note is the excellent photos this auction house posted of the chest. It’s always a pleasure when I run into one that’s shot well - it’s often the opposite case. I copied them to post here…
This unidentified shop had a great output - some readers will remember the cupboards I made in the past few years based on ones from this shop. When Trent, Alan Miller & I wrote about the cupboards in 2001 there were 12 or 13 existing cupboards - no two the same. The chests with drawers are equally varied - they’re instantly recognizable as work from this shop - but don’t repeat verbatim.
This one has the initials & date “HT 1685”
When I previously wrote about these, I included some photos of this chest before it was restored - this photo is from Trent’s compilation anthology of articles from the Magazine Antiques Pilgrim Century Furniture - the photo is from 1938.
And the present condition - a restoration from 1941. They were lucky there was something to copy - they didn’t have to make anything up.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Follansbee's Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.