Wainscot chair, red oak
H: W: (across front) D:

Carved box with drawer
H: 14” W: 23 1/2” D: 18”
$3,000 plus shipping in US

detail, carved panel

This is my fourth version of this iconic wainscot chair. It’s based on two nearly-identical period examples attributed to Thomas Dennis of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Those chairs are at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine. Mine follows the scale and most of the details of the period chairs. I changed the panel and slightly altered the strapwork carving on the top rail.

Every now and then I like to tackle something a bit more complex - this box-with-a-drawer is one I’ve tried a couple of times before. I changed one or two things this time but it’s a pretty close copy of one by Thomas Dennis in Ipswich, Massachusetts between 1660-1706.

All the oak is riven, quartered - in the usual period manner. The lid is quartersawn American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) - the original used sycamore, but flatsawn- it has a large split down the middle. I glued up two quartersawn boards to get my lid.

The drawer is all riven oak - the sides meet the drawer front with a sliding dovetail. Bottom boards are thin, edges meet with a small tongue & groove. No drawer pull, you open the drawer using those “glyphs” attached at the ends of the drawer front.

Inside the box is a lidded till - and the box lid hinged with iron gimmals/snipebills.