Serpentine-Front Four-Drawer Chest in Figured Curly Maple, Bowed Top over Cabriole Legs with Carved Paw Feet, American, c. 1890–1915

The Piece

A four-drawer chest that refuses to sit still. The whole front is serpentine — every drawer swells forward at the centre and draws back at the ends in one continuous S-curve, and the top follows it, bowing out over the case with a moulded and shaped edge that repeats the same line. Nothing about the silhouette is straight.

Two short drawers over two long ones, each front carrying a fine cock-beaded lip. Below the bottom drawer a shaped apron sweeps down and out into cabriole legs that curve at the knee, taper, and finish in carved paw feet.

The timber is the reason to stop. It is maple with the figure fully open — a rippling, tiger-striped curl running horizontally across every drawer front and washing over the top in broad flame-like bands, catching light and shifting as you move past it. The colour is a warm honey-gold that seems lit from inside.

The hardware is cast brass in the batwing pattern: a shaped pierced backplate with foliate wings and a swing bail, four to the long drawers and one to each short. Both long drawers carry brass-lined keyholes.

Pull a drawer and the case shows its manners. Solid wood throughout, a mortised half-moon lock plate let into the top edge of the drawer front, and brass strike plates cut cleanly into the carcase. A circular maker's brand is impressed into the timber inside the case.

History & Provenance

The construction dates it, and it is all of a piece.

The serpentine front is cut from the solid, not bent. Each drawer front was sawn and shaped from thick stock so the curve runs through the whole thickness of the board — you can see it in the depth of the drawer front at the ends of an open drawer. That is expensive work: it wastes a great deal of timber, and it wastes figured timber, which is worse. It also means the curl had to be matched across four separate drawer fronts so the figure reads as one continuous surface.

The locks are mortised, not surface-screwed. Each long drawer has a half-moon brass lock plate let flush into the top edge of the front, with its strike plate cut into the carcase to match. Cutting a mortise for a lock and its keeper is cabinet work; screwing a lock to the back of a drawer front is not.

And there is a maker's brand. A circular mark is impressed into the timber inside the case — a factory brand rather than a paper label, which is why it has survived. It is not legible enough here to attribute a name, and we are not going to guess at one, but it establishes that this came out of a real furniture works with a mark it was willing to put on the wood.

The vocabulary is American Colonial Revival at its confident end: serpentine case, bowed top, cabriole leg, carved paw foot, batwing brass. Those elements were being built together in quantity by the better American factories from about 1890 into the First World War, and the use of solid figured maple rather than oak or a mahogany veneer places this at the upper end of that production. The range given is c. 1890–1915, and it rests on the shaping, the locks and the brand rather than on the style alone.

One note on the timber, because the trade uses the words loosely. The rippling horizontal stripe here is curly or tiger maple — a wave in the grain that runs across the board and throws light back at different angles along its length. It is a natural anomaly, it cannot be produced on purpose, and a tree that has it is worth several times one that does not. That is why it was reserved for show surfaces.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

Figured maple is the argument, and it is not a subtle one. Most antique case furniture is brown. This is honey-gold with a rippling stripe that moves as you cross the room, and it will be the brightest wooden object in almost any space you put it. Against white or plaster walls it glows; against dark paint it does something better still.

The serpentine front is the second argument, and it is what separates this from the flat-fronted chests that fill every mall booth in the country. A curved case throws a soft shadow line under every drawer and catches light along each swell, so the piece reads as sculptural rather than as a box with handles.

It is a genuinely useful size. It works as a bedroom chest, as an entry piece with lamps and a bowl on top, under a mirror in a hall, as a dining-room server for linens and flatware, or in a living room as a media console with real storage behind it. Four deep drawers and a top that will take weight.

For a designer or a dealer it is the thing that is hard to source: a genuine period case piece with strong figure, intact original hardware and unbroken cabriole legs, at a price that does not require a client conversation.

A note on care. Keep it out of direct sunlight — this is the one that matters here. Maple lightens and yellows unevenly under UV, and figured maple shows the damage badly because the curl fades at a different rate than the ground, which flattens the very thing you bought it for. Keep it off an exterior wall that runs cold and away from a heating vent or radiator, since solid wood this wide moves with humidity and that is what opens joints and lifts a finish. Dust it dry, wipe spills immediately, and feed it once or twice a year with a clear paste wax worked in thinly and buffed off — nothing else. Avoid silicone-based sprays entirely; they build a haze that must be stripped before any wax will take again. Do not line the drawers with adhesive paper, which will pull the surface when it comes off. If a drawer sticks in humid weather, rub a candle stub or a little paraffin along the runners rather than forcing it. Lift from the case rather than the top when moving it, and never drag it — cabriole legs take load straight down and break sideways.