Mecklenburg County or Halifax County, Virginia, 1790-1805
Black walnut with yellow pine
Catalog no. 112
Chests of drawers with exposed prospect doors akin to those on desks were favored by furniture buyers in Mecklenburg and Halifax Counties, a rural district of small farms and large plantations in Virginia's southern Piedmont. Such chests offer new insights into the ways specific British furniture-making traditions were transmitted to the early southern backcountry. Although published pattern books were a common source in coastal centers, emigrating artisans had a greater influence inland. Here, the design source likely was an artisan from East Anglia, that part of England defined by the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Virtually identical chests with exterior prospect doors and flanking deep drawers were made there but almost nowhere else. There is little evidence that furniture from East Anglia was imported to North America, although some cabinetmakers and related tradesmen did move from that area to eastern and central Virginia.