Hepplewhite’s book, published in 1789, contains designs for chests of drawers, extending nearly to the floor, with bracket feet, one having fluted columns at the corners, and an urn with garlands above the flat top. It is probable, however, that high chests of drawers were not made in any number after 1790. CHAPTER II BUREAUS AND WASHSTANDS [Illustration] THE word “bureau” is now used to designate low chests of drawers. Chippendale called such pieces “commode tables” or “commode bureau tables.” As desks with slanting lids for a long period during the eighteenth century were called “bureaus” or “bureau desks,” the probability is that chests of drawers which resembled desks in the construction of the lower part went by the name of “bureau tables” because of the flat table-top. Hepplewhite called such pieces “commodes” or “chests of drawers.” As the general name by which they are now known is “bureau,” it has seemed simpler to call them so in this chapter. Bureaus were made of mahogany, birch, or cherry, and occasionally of maple, while a few have been found of rosewood. Walnut was not used in serpentine or swell front bureaus, although walnut chests of drawers are not uncommon, which look like the top part of a high chest, with bracket feet, and handles of an early design; and so far as the writer’s observation goes, few bureaus with three or four drawers were made of walnut. [Illustration: Illus. 28.—Block-front Bureau, about 1770.] The wood usually employed in the finest bureaus is mahogany, and the earliest ones are small, with the serpentine, block, or straight front, and with the top considerably larger than the body, projecting nearly an inch and a half over the front and sides, the edge shaped like the drawer fronts. The early handles are large and like letter E in Illustration 11. The block front is, like the serpentine or yoke front, carved from one thick board. It is found more frequently in this country than in England. The block-front bureau in Illustration 28 is owned by Dwight M. Prouty, Esq., of Boston, and is a very good example, with the original handles. [Illustration: Illus. 29.—Block-front Bureau, about 1770.] The small bureau in Illustration 29 is in the Warner house in Portsmouth. It is of mahogany, with an unusual form of block front, the blocking being rounded. The shape of the board top corresponds to the curves upon the front of the drawers. The handles are large, and upon each end is a massive handle to lift the bureau by. Illustration 30 shows a block-front bureau owned by the writer. Chippendale gives a design of a bureau similar to this, with three drawers upon rather high legs, under the name of “commode table.” [Illustration: Illus. 31.—Kettle-shaped Bureau, about 1770.]