Prickett Desk 2011

similar angles. As with the earlier method, drawer fronts projected beyond the drawer sides, were curved at their ends and fit into matching curved rebates in inner case front edges. The final step in the bombé evolution was the most visually elegant and the most expensive. Both inner and outer case sides were laboriously worked to perfectly parallel curves, usually ¾ " thick. Outer drawer sides and ends of drawer fronts were then also laboriously shaped to matching parallel curves. With this design, inner case sides could either be angled/faceted, or also shaped to a matching parallel curve. The Cabot-Paine-Metcalf secretary represents the ultimate, final evolution, of the bombé form in Boston and Salem. The earliest “pot-bellied” cases with curves which jut out abruptly gradually evolved to curves of less severity which began more and more gradually, and at a point higher and higher up on the case. On the present secretary, the curve begins halfway down the narrow top drawer, swells out and down gradually and with restrained appeal. This remains sympathetic and harmonious with the restrained and balanced curves of the bonnet. This also relates closely to the most sophisticated Boston bombé furniture being made in 1770–1780 by Thomas Sherburne of Boston. One example made in Sherburne’s shop and signed by his apprentice “Nathan Bowen 1772”, a few years before his training ended, was sold at Sotheby’s, January 19, 2003, lot 580. The present secretary, and several other pieces made by the same hand, appears to have other characteristics typical of Boston but not Salem construction, raising the question about whether he trained in the Boston area. 10