Queen Anne Walnut Dressing Table, ca. 1745
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GUEST:
I brought a Philadelphia lowboy. It's been in my family for about five generations.
APPRAISER:
So, you called it a lowboy.
GUEST:
I did.
APPRAISER:
Which, um, is sort of popular term for this kind of furniture. But we know from 18th-century inventories that it was actually a dressing table.
GUEST:
A dressing table.
APPRAISER:
Yes, and these pieces of furniture were often made in conjunction with a highboy, or high chest of drawers, with the same styles...
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
...uh, to them, and they were kept in bedrooms.
GUEST:
All right.
APPRAISER:
So, a lady would have, uh, dressed in front of this. Maybe there would have been a mirror behind it. So it's made of walnut. When I saw it across the room, I knew it was Pennsylvania because of its trifid feet. And if you notice, up the top of the foot, there is what we call stockings. I would date this dressing table between 1730 and 1760.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
It's a Queen Anne, uh, piece.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
The secondary woods, there's poplar, there's also some yellow pine. It has a wonderful molded top with cut, what we call a cut corner, which, you can see...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
...it doesn't go out to a rectangle.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
But they clip it off to make a beautiful, uh, shape. Now, again, from across the room, I can tell that these brasses have been replaced. These brasses would have been bigger. You can see the size of the batwings here, and they would have lined up with the one below, giving it this very rectilinear form to it. This, um, I think, is, is really the Pennsylvania aesthetic of Quaker craftsmen, and the Clifton and Carteret Furniture Manufactory was... They were Quakers.
GUEST:
(murmurs)
APPRAISER:
So, you get beautiful line, but you get simplicity, as well. And I think that that's very evocative of, of this piece.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Have you had this appraised before or...?
GUEST:
Uh, no. Um, just estate appraisal, which was, like, 15 years ago.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm, yeah. Was this an estate where there was a lot of material dispersed among family members or...
GUEST:
Eventually.
APPRAISER:
Did you get the whole kit and caboodle, or...?
GUEST:
No, I didn't get the whole kit and caboodle, no.
APPRAISER:
(laughing) What made you choose this piece?
GUEST:
I needed furniture in my house.
APPRAISER:
(laughs) So, I'd give the condition of this piece a B-plus. And the reason we don't get an A is that there is a section on the top, which has been replaced.
GUEST:
Repaired.
APPRAISER:
It's a two-board top. Probably an auction estimate in today's market would be in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. (laughs)
GUEST:
Wow. (laughs) I may have to find another place for it. (laughs)
APPRAISER:
So, I would say $30,000 for...
GUEST:
For insurance.
APPRAISER:
For a fair insurance value.
GUEST:
Okay, that, that's good to know.
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