Chest-on-Chest
Unknown Artist
c. 1800
Medium
mahogany
Dimensions
235 × 108.6 × 62.3 cm
Classification
Furniture and woodwork
Department
Decorative Art and Design
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Moselle Taylor Meals
Accession Number
1976.170
About this artwork
Block-fronted case furniture-that is, pieces with façades that vary in the plane of their relief by extending forward at the sides and receding in the center-decorated with carved shell ornaments, has long been among the most admired of 18th-century American furniture. The sophisticated examples of such pieces were presumed to have been made in Newport, Rhode Island, particularly by members of the Townsend and Goddard families. However, recent scholarship convincingly hypothesizes that some of t...