In his preface to The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, George Hepplewhite comments that his audience included the “Countrymen and Artizans whose distance from the metropolis makes even an imperfect knowledge of its improvements acquired with much trouble and expence.” The sort of craftsman to whom Hepplewhite directed his introduction was responsible for this unconventional card table. Its pretensions to urban style are readily apparent, yet upon closer inspection, it lacks cohesiveness, its inlays are idiosyncratic, and the legs’ reeding is incomplete, falling short of the ornamental turnings. In spite of these visual shortcomings, the table’s sweeping serpentine facade, profuse inlays, and contrasting veneers combine to make it an ambitious piece of cabinetwork. 

Technical notes: Mahogany, unidentified inlay; hard maple (hinged rail), hickory (hinge pin), eastern white pine. The rear rail consists of three adjacent components. The fly leg is attached to the back with a five-part hinge. On the back rail is inscribed: “Joel Foster’s” and what appears to be “Linnell.”  

Related examples: Stoneman 1959, pp. 218–29, nos. 132, 133; Antiques 57 (March 1965), p. 296; Sotheby’s, New York, sale 4785Y, January 27–30, 1982, lot 1083; Hewitt, Kane, and Ward 1982, pp. 128–29, no. 13; Antiques 134 (September 1988), p. 385; Barquist, Garrett, and Ward 1992, pp. 184–86, no. 87; Christie’s, New York, sale 7294. June 25, 1991, lot 157. Closely related are worktables in Morse 1924, p. 151: Otto 1965, p. 43, no. 96. While visually unrelated, a card table signed in 1827 by John Dunlap II (1784–1869) of Antrim, New Hampshire, shares with them turnings similar in concept (Garvin, Garvin, and Page 1979, pp. 112–13, no. 46).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.