"Crim Family" Chippendale walnut dressing table carving attributed to martin jugiez (d. 1819), philadelphia, pa, circa 1770

Rectangular lip molded edge top with deep notched corners, one wide and three varisized small drawers below, the centermost incised and shell-carved with applied leaf carving, all drawers are lip molded, flanked by quarter round fluted corners, on leaf and rosette carved cabriole legs, claw and ball feet. Old, pierced batwing brasses.

H: 28 7/8 in. W: 35 in. D: 21 1/4 in.

Lot is accompanied by photographs of the Hall Collection on exhibition, showing dressing table, and by bill of sale.
Furniture historian, Alan Miller, has identified Martin Jugiez as the carver of this dressing table. In his experience, the small scale and oval form of the shell and extraordinary tendril appliques on the central drawer are without cognate and perhaps due to the small size of the drawer. Miller suggests that Jugiez was reaching for a vocabulary reflected more in his architectural work than in his customary furniture work. One may look at the organ case at St. Peters Church (1763) in Philadelphia by Jugiez and Nicholas Bernard for related vocabulary.

Provenance: Estate of Virginia H. Knauer, Washington, D.C.

Dr. William H. Crim, Baltimore, Maryland (1845-1902), Auctioneer O.A. Kirkland, "Catalogue of the Celebrated Dr. William H. Crim Collection of Genuine Antiques, Baltimore, MD," April 22, 1903, lot 170, illustrated. The dressing table was probably purchased by Robert Calvin Hall (1865-1914), a Pittsburgh financier and early collector of antique American furniture and Native American baskets. The dressing table descended to Hall's daughter, Rosalie Hall Sheedy and thence to her sons of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Israel Sack, Inc., September 18, 1957.

Exhibitions: Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Literature: Newton W. Elwell, The Architecture, Furniture and Interiors of

Maryland and Virginia during the 18th Century (1897), illustrated plate XXXVII, caption, "Lowboy from Caroline Co., MD."

The Magazine Antiques, July 1957, illustration on page 1.