Offered by ROBERTO FREITAS AMERICAN ANTIQUES & DECORATIVE ARTS

THE STILES FAMILY RARE BONNET TOP CHEST ON CHEST
Woodbury, Connecticut, 1770-1780.

The bonnet top with flame finials centering a central drawer with deeply carved shell, dovetailed drawers flanked by reeded pilasters, the lower case with two long drawers over a scalloped skirt set on cabriole legs with ball and claw feet, cherry with poplar, pine and butternut secondary, 94-1/2 x 42-1/2 x 22 in.

A very closely related chest on chest, also with a history of descent in the Stiles family, is in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg. According to family tradition, the chest was made by Elijah Booth (1745-1823) as a wedding present for his daughter. It descended in the Stiles family of Southbury until recent times, and was acquired by the Museum in 1972.

Provenance: Descended in the Stiles family of Woodbury, Connecticut, through Benjamin Stiles to his granddaughter Alice, to her cousins' son, a descendant of Abel Stiles, in 1920. Purchased at the Winter Associates auction of the Stiles Burpee home in Southbury in 1992; The Ann and Joel Finn Collection.