The dressing-table in Illustration [13] also belongs to Mr. Robart, and shows the style in which that piece of furniture was made.
The names “high-boy” and “low-boy” or “high-daddy” and “low-daddy” are not mentioned in old records and were probably suggested by the appearance of the chests mounted upon their high legs.
Illus. 14.—Dressing-table, 1720.
High chests, both six-legged and bandy-legged, with their dressing-tables were sometimes decorated with the lacquering which was so fashionable during the first part of the eighteenth century.
Illustration [14] shows a dressing-table or low-boy from the Bolles collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is covered with japanning, in Chinese designs. This dressing-table is the companion to a lacquered high-boy, with a flat top, in the Bolles collection. The handle is like letter C, in Illustration [11]. That and the moulding around the drawers place its date about 1720.
Coming originally from the Orient, japanned furniture became fashionable, and consequently the process of lacquering or japanning was practised by cabinet-makers in France and England about 1700, and soon after in this country.
The earliest high chests with cabriole or bandy legs are flat-topped, and have two short drawers, like the six-legged chests, at the top. They are made of walnut, or of pine veneered with walnut. The curves at the lower edge are similar to those upon six-legged chests and are occasionally finished with a small bead-moulding.
Illus. 15.—Cabriole-legged High Chest
of Drawers with China Steps,
about 1720.