What is the age and style of this dresser?

Found this piece a few days ago...rescued it from the land fill and the rain. It is all pine with mahogany veneer on the front, not the drawers. The rest has a reddish brown wash, paint? I'm thinking it is early to mid 19th century. Looks really old. The surface is untouched. i am going to clean it and give it a wax polish. Another found piece for my guest room. Any opinions on age and style?

 

Circa 1850. Late classical. Think the whole thing was originally veneered.

 

Totally agree with Brad's dating, but to me, the strip from under the top down where I've pointed, looks like it's been either added or replaced.......JMHO!!!

 

Except for the above-mentioned strip, and the fancy work on the bottom, my parents had its sibling -- yanked out of an old silo by my father.

 

I was going to ask if that part that Aquitaine pointed at was a secret drawer.
Can you pull the top drawer out and look there?

Agree with the early to mid 1800s. However, I'm going to disagree with the veneer.
I think it was regionally made of native fruitwoods.

Was this a family piece? What part of the country?

@James Conrad

 

Going with Brad on this one, typical mid 19th century panel construction in what looks like tulip poplar to me, for sure on secondary drawer construction & probably entire chest.
Yes, it lost most of it's mahogany veneer somewhere along the way, probably in the 1960-70s stripping craze when everything just HAD to be early american. If people weren't stripping paint they were stripping veneer for some reason. Machine made except for the drawer boxes.
Late Classical style, sometimes incorrectly called Empire revival, VERY popular in it's day, literally millions were made between 1840s-1900 or so.

 

A quick google brought this up on ebay, supposed to be American Empire C 1820.
This was the "LOOK" everyone wanted back then and, OP chest is the same form, just missing most of the decorations like, carved paw/beast feet, doric columns, brass inlay & pulls & gilded surfaces.
American Empire furniture marked the end of handmade furniture in america (ditto federal styles sheraton & hepplewhite) and the beginning of machine made furniture like OP chest starting in the 1840s.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/361653078995

 

And this is what american furniture factories came up with to satisfy that demand & was affordable.
What OP chest looked like when new. Restored 1840-50 late classical Chest

 

This was a curbside find. I live in N.E. PA. There is no secret drawer. The whole piece being veneered doesn't make sense to me, as the reddish milk painted surface and top have patina and wear from great age and use.

 

Thanks for the info...the top and the drawer fronts are pine.

 

OK but, why a band of veneer at top & bottom & not the drawer fronts?

OK, the secondary wood ( drawer sides) on drawers looks like poplar in photo.

 

I don't see any milk paint. I get the feeling that the top may not be original to this. The second example James posted is a very good comparable.

 

Ditto, or what could have happened is, they routered/ molding plane, a molded edge on existing top.

 

You absolutely know your stuff..not disputing, but why remove most of the veneer and not all of it? Maybe they could not afford to veneer the whole thing? Why go to the trouble to strip down such a nondescript piece. It looked country or primitive to me. Maybe they were going for contrast in the choice of woods for a certain look.

 

OOPS! whole post got quoted!

Good question, why not remove it all.
What usually happens on veneer is it gets damaged, bubbles, buckles, seams come loose, etc and it gets scraped off, why they left those bands on front i have no clue, perhaps it was tight to substrate below so they left it alone.

I think more likely as Brad noted, entire chest was originally veneered and, veneer ran into issues so they removed it.