Hartford County, Connecticut, 18th century, with excellent proportions, figured cherry throughout, original brasses, boldly turned spire and urn finials, fan carved drawers, shaped apron, tall and slender cabriole legs, applied knee brackets, cushioned pad feet, white pine and poplar secondaries, 85-1/2 x 38-1/2 x 19-7/8 in.

Provenance: Nathan Liverant and Son, Colchester, Connecticut, November 1993 (accompanied by copy of receipt for $145,000); Estate of Richard and Shirley Roberts, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Literature: Deanne Levison, "Living with Antiques: A Collection on the Chesapeake Bay", The Magazine Antiques (December 2001), p. 808, pl. VII.

Note: Features characteristic of Roberts' work include the horizontal center of an otherwise cyma-curved apron, cylindrical pads underneath the feet and fans with small convex rays.

A virtually identical high chest of drawers, as well as its en suite dressing table, are at the Butler-McCook Homestead, Hartford, Connecticut, and in the collection of Connecticut Landmarks (formerly The Antiquarian and Landmarks Society), published in Thomas P. and Alice K. Kugelman, with Robert Lionetti, Connecticut Valley Furniture, Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries, 1750-1800, (2005), pp. 112-113, cat nos. 46 & 47.

Other comparable high chests of drawers include one with a history of ownership in the Bliss family of Hartford, and a second auctioned in 1993; all are discussed in Kugelman and Lionetti, pp. 110-113.