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Part of The American Wing
Attributed to John Townsend (1732–1809)
Date: ca. 1765Accession Number: 10.125.83
Date: 1762–65Accession Number: 18.110.4
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The furniture in this gallery, mostly mid-eighteenth-century cabinetwork—chests, desks, and clock cases—was heavily influenced by the classically inspired architecture of the houses for which it was intended. The scroll pediments that often cap the best of the high chests and chests-on-chests echo the serpentine curves atop fancy front doorways. (An example from the Connecticut River valley is installed here on one wall.) The most prestigious and, indeed, the most uniquely American of these pedimented case pieces was the high chest of drawers, or "highboy," raised on tall, gracefully curved legs. More furniture of this period can be seen in galleries 717 and 719.
