Chippendale dresser age?

Interested in this piece. Gonna have to be refinished. It is chippendale style. Any thoughts on the age of the piece? TIA.

 

Weird construction IMO

 

@James Conrad

 

Hi,
I would love to get my hands on that piece. I would want to refinish that chest. The last one I did was a bachelors chest that was missing two drawers and painted green with an awful "antiquing" yellow brown trim. I found it at the local dump. One brass hanging off of it.
greg

 

Where are you located, where did you get the chest?
It's a chippendale tall chest with dovetailed case & drawer blades. Is it period? maybe, maybe not.
A few things stand out, the drawers are not graduated as they usually are, the backboard is attached in an odd way, it should not be visible when viewing chest from the side, the feet have very little definition (no spurs for example) and finally, the "dovetailed" drawer blades appear straight/flat and not flared at the ends as they should be.

 

From what little we can see, I agree.

 

Im wondering if its missing the bottom half ? Someone did a hideous job of trying to refinish it ! To me it looks like its had parts replaced , but Im just an amateur .

 

Or maybe age it perhaps?

 

To me it looks like a turn of the century home made piece like the pine / fir glass door cabinet I rescued from my cousin's paternal grandmother's Model T Garage , filled with oil cans , a 1912 Santa Cruz High yearbook with a folded up 1895 Santa Cruz Surf Newspaper , the year she was born. It's sitting in my side room as i write this ........looked the same when I pulled it out ( after I cleaned it up ) , with a few added oil rings from oil cans , which I had to work to get out .......

 

Sort of like this 1950’s Tallboy Dresser, but the construction , to me , looks older home made, but I am no expert.......interesting that your's has locks on each drawer ? That seems unusual to me ...they are actual working locks or just decorative Escutcheon Key Hole Covers ? In the second picture I see the second drawer looks like it has a working lock...

 

Never saw dovetailed bracket feet before!!

Nice work, but talented home-made project IMO

 

I was thinking it was a country piece...I live in PA. The backboards are inset, the pic is a weird angle. I am confused about the drawer dovetails, they look flared to me.

 

Drawer BLADES, the piece of wood that is between the drawers,
not the drawer sides.
Do you own the chest? thinking of buying? It's at auction?

Close up of drawer blades, the piece of wood that separates the drawers




.

 

The feet look awfully "crisp" not a mark or ding anywhere on that front edge that i can see, naturally they could be replaced.
Is chest pine? if so could originally have been painted.

 

Oh...ok. Yeah, I am thinking about buying it.

 

Pretty sure it is pine.

 

How much are they asking?

 

I don't know what your budget is but, even 18th century furniture is affordable now. Here is a PA chippendale tall chest that sold for $650.
You know it's period
It's in decent condition
It's ready to place/use RIGHT NOW
OTOH you are considering a piece that's very iffy to all those above issues plus, it's a "project" and needs work. Unless getting it for almost free, $100. or so.....
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/55072906_pennsylvania-chippendale-tall-chest

 

Or if you had a bit bigger budget, here is one going on the sale block soon, PA tall chest, highly figured walnut, fluted quarter columns, original brass, etc
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/82412360_american-chippendale-figured-walnut-tall-chest

 

Your chest i would guess has period & non period elements/parts and, considering it's condition would be lucky to fetch $100-150 at auction.
It's a "parts" chest for a restorer/cabinetmaker.