American, Boston Massachusetts

For nearly a century, the Museum's renowned collection of American furniture has included pieces with "blocked" and "swelled" drawer fronts, a specialty of Boston-area and Newport cabinetmakers; but until the presentation of this gift, the Museum had no example of a serpentine design. It was popular in Boston and Salem just after the Revolutionary War, when this mahogany chest of drawers was made for a member of the Byram family of Massachusetts. The donor is a RISD alumna in whose family it descended. Because American furniture is a particularly strong area of the Museum's holdings, it is unusual for a gap to be filled at the same level of quality as the furniture already in the Pendleton and Radeke collections (now on display on level 5 in the Main Gallery).