Boston, 1760-1780, finely figured mahogany shaped top with dramatic overhang and thumbnail molded edge, compact case with rare dressing slide, four graduated block front drawers with original large brasses, stepped base moldings, bracket feet with spurred returns, white pine secondary, backboard retains part of a 19th or early 20th century printed label (illegible), 32 x 34-1/2 x 21-1/8 in., case width 30-3/4 in.

Provenance: By descent in the Storer family of Boston, Massachusetts; Israel Sack, Inc., New York, NY; Collection of Mr. Robert Lee Gill; Levison & Cullen Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, April 2003 (accompanied by copy of receipt for $330,000 and 2015 appraisal); Estate of Richard and Shirley Roberts, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Literature: Illustrated as a "Masterpiece" example in Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (1993), p. 107.

Note: This chest is a superb example of the form. Few surviving examples from 18th century New England achieve the perfect proportions and dramatic visuals of this exceptional example.

A comparable example sold Sotheby's, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Meyer, January 20, 1996 lot 74 (sold for $321,000). Other related examples can be found in the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Historic New England, Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden and the US Department of State.

For an in depth discussion of the blockfront form, see Margaretta Markle Lovell, "Boston Blockfront Furniture" in Boston Furniture of the 18th Century, the proceedings of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts conference, May 1972 (1974), pp. 77-135.

This chest has a history of descending in the Ebenezer Storer family of Boston. Storer was a wealthy merchant who succeeded John Hancock as Treasurer of Harvard and was a Selectman of Boston. A "bureau" and "Case of drawers" listed on his estate could possibly be this chest.