This picture is of an original High chest in cherry made by Simeon Pomeroy of Northampton, Ma. with its original brasses, around 1760. His signature detail is the drapery moulding connecting the volutes. There is only one other High chest extant and it is appropriately at Historic Deerfield. There is a Chest on Chest made by him known as well, and is illustrated in The Mag. Antiques in October, 1938.
I repaired, restored, and conserved this High chest in 2010 for a client who's Grandmother's maiden name was Pomeroy and lived in New York City. One of the unique characteristics of this chest is that he made five finials for it indicated by prick marks on the base of the finials and corresponding to the prick marks on the moulding, and, to top it off, the spiral carving on the finials have opposing curves - sinistral and dextral. The center finial was, is missing, what did it look like? Other notes: His choice of boards is superb, the sides are of one board cut close to the heart of the tree which means a lot of quartered grain that translates into less seasonal swelling and shrinking, which adds more stability. Also, you'll notice that the drawers are light and dark and oriented the same- no accident-the boards are also quartered stock, the grain to the outside of the tree being more vertical turns darker, thus you have this dark-light waterfall effect! Good stuff. Oh, I almost forgot, the pinwheel volutes are also opposing spirals. And, we have two beautiful fan-shell carved center drawers top and bottom! Nothing left out!
This is an elegant and beautiful Connecticut River Valley Masterpiece by Simeon Pomeroy !