CABINET-ON-CHEST (OR LADY'S CLOSET)

While London was an important style center, new research has illuminated the profound Scottish influence on southern cabinetmaking.  MESDA’s Charleston-made cabinet-on-chest, for example, bears an uncanny resemblance to the glass-fronted example, called a “lady’s closet,” made in 1753 for the Earl of Dumfries by the Edinburgh cabinetmaker, Francis Brodie (1708-1782).  In fact, the cabinet-on-chest form appears to have been a distinctly Scottish expression.

The architecturally inspired carving on this Charleston-made piece has been attributed to Henry Burnett, a craftsman who advertised in 1750 as a “House and Ship carver from London.” While there is no proof that Burnett was connected to the family of the same name in Kincardineshire, Scotland, his association with Robert Dean might explain the Scottish connection. In 1750, the year of Burnett’s arrival in Charleston, Dean advertised in the South Carolina Gazette as a “Joiner from Scotland” who offered “all kinds of Cabinet and joiners work…done after the best manner.” Only one year earlier, Dean had made furniture for Andrew Fletcher (1694-1766), Lord Milton in Edinburgh, and very shortly after his arrival in Charleston submitted plans for “undertaking and finishing the inside work of St. Michael’s Church,” a monumental project that involved Henry Burnett’s carving and the joinery of another prominent Charleston artisan, the cabinetmaker Thomas Elfe (ca. 1719-1775).

When Burnett died in 1761, Robert Dean and Thomas Elfe appraised his estate. Part of a small but impressive group of highly ornate furniture produced in Charleston during the 1750s, MESDA’s cabinet-on-chest coincides with the decade when both Henry Burnett and Robert Dean were in Charleston.