Charleston, South Carolina, 1765-1780
Mahogany with bald cypress and tulip poplar
Catalog no. 119
The high chest of drawers, or “high boy,” was out of date in British fashion centers by 1730. It was replaced by two new forms, the clothespress, favored by Chesapeake residents, and the double chest of drawers, preferred in the Carolina Low Country. Accounts indicate that Thomas Elfe, one of many local artisans, produced nearly thirty double chests in the seven-year period from 1768 to 1775. Only after the Revolution did South Carolinians gradually abandon the double chest in favor of the clothespress, a development that mimicked contemporary British trends.
Charleston double chests were modeled on British prototypes. This example, which descended in the Deas family, represents one of the more ambitious local versions of the form. The basic Charleston double chest featured a flat top with a simple molded cornice. This chest displays a cornice enriched by a wall-of-Troy molding and a “fret around,” as cabinetmaker Elfe called the sawn element just below the cornice. The top received a purely ornamental and labor-intensive “pediment head cut through” and a carved finial. The Deases also chose to have the chest fitted with brass castors for ease of movement, and they specified that the top drawer in the lower case be supplanted by “a desk drawer,” options also available in the Elfe shop. Judging from the double chest entries in Elfe's account book, the inclusion of these extra components increased the cost (by about 33 percent over that of a standard model.)