High chest of drawers

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A new form introduced with the William and Mary style, the high chest of drawers was a prestigious addition to the early-eighteenth-century home. The scalloped skirt, curved stretchers, and six turned legs on this chest bring lightness and movement to the form. The large, smooth surfaces of the drawer fronts of the upper and lower cases were achieved by abandoning the panel-and-frame tradition in favor of dovetailed-board construction—a technique created by the new craft of cabinetmaking. Dramatic surface decoration, accomplished here by bordering the richly figured walnut-veneered drawer fronts with a herringbone pattern, is characteristic of furniture dating from the 1690s to the 1730s.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art