The Philadelphia Cabinet and Chair Maker’s Union Book of Prices for 1828 very nearly describes this example in listing “loo table with solid top three feet eight inches in diameter,” noting that the top can be turned up “with clamps and catch.” While inclusion of this type of tilt-top table in the Philadelphia price book would suggest that it was common there, no other examples have been discovered. However, highly figured wedge-shaped rays of mahogany veneer also appear on the top of a group of extremely sophisticated Philadelphia center and card tables, which tends to confirm Philadelphia as this piece’s place of origin. This ray ornament is not found on English tables of this type, although it is seen in German and Austrian tables, suggesting a possible Germanic influence at work in Philadelphia. However, the painted black and gold band around the outer edge of the top echoes the use of inlaid brass on English Regency library center tables. Contrasting with the mahogany top, the skirt, pedestal, and base are ebonized with skillfully stenciled gilt ornament. The design source for this table may be plate 69 of George Smith’s 1808 Designs, where figure 2 illustrates a closely related example with molded skirt and acanthus leaf ornament at the base of the pillar. Smith describes how the top turns up as usual and how the molded frame or skirt conceals the block and pin mechanism, all features found in this example. The compressed ball-shaped brass feet, which closely resemble those in the Smith illustration, bear the mark of Yates and Hamper, a leading brass manufacturer in Birmingham, England. While the Bayou Bend table represents the acme of Philadelphia Grecian taste, it is not possible to assign it to a specific maker.

Technical notes: Painted and gilded mahogany, mahogany veneer (table top and block); yellow-poplar (pedestal, table top rim), eastern white pine (base). Stamped on bottom of brass feet, below a crown-shaped symbol: “PATENT / YATES & HAMPER.” 

Related examples: Examples ascribed to Philadelphian Anthony Quervelle (1789–1856) often utilized the motif of wedge-shaped veneers, both on the tops of center tables and on the bases of pier tables (see Smith 1973, p. 90). Two Philadelphia tables at Winterthur also have this ornament (Montgomery 1966b, nos. 316, 349). A table bearing the stamp of Quervelle in the Baltimore Museum of Art has feet marked Yates and Hamper (Cooper 1993, p. 60, no. 36), as does an identical table in a private New York collection; a sofa table bearing the stamp of Quervelle has similar brass feet (PMA 1976, p. 277). For an English example with inlaid brass, see Christie’s, London, sale 5404, June 8, 1995, Fine English Furniture, lot 231; for a Baltimore example, see Weidman et al. 1993, p. 128, fig. 155.

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.