A CHIPPENDALE CARVED CHERRYWOOD SPICE CABINET

Combining rarity of form with pristine condition, this spice cabinet is an exceptional example of Pennsylvania cabinetmaking from the eighteenth century. The bonnet top, finials and rosettes emulate contemporaneous Philadelphia case pieces, but their inventive execution along with the idiosyncratic stop-fluting on the interior suggest that the maker was working outside the city. Another example with seemingly identical proportions, rosettes and feet but with a drawer in the tympanum and door with rectangular inset panel appears to be from the same shop (William MacPherson Hornor, Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (1935), pl. 56). Very few other bonnet-top spice cabinets from Pennsylvania are known, and for three other examples see David B. Warren, Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, TX, 1975), p. 37, cat. 72; Sotheby's, New York, 28-31 January 1994, lot 1298 and 13 October 2000, lot 305.