Card Table
- Card Table
Closed: 30 1/8 × 36 3/4 × 18 3/4 in. (76.5 × 93.3 × 47.6 cm)
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This superb table exemplifies a type introduced during the Late Baroque period that persisted into the Rococo. Both the 1772 and 1786 Philadelphia price lists record “Card tables With Round Corners” as one of three models available. The simplest rendition, with “Claw feet & plain knees,” was £5, as compared to tables with Marlborough feet or crooked legs listed at £3 and £3.10.0, respectively. “Leaves on knees & carved molding” increased the price another three pounds, while the addition of “Carved Rales” raised it two more, for a total of £10, making it the most expensive table one could order.
Related examples: Downs 1952, no.343; Antiques 94 (September 1968), p. 302; Hummel 1976, pp. 108, 113–14; Cooper 1980, p. 192; Burke 1981, pp. 114–15; Flanigan 1986, pp. 44–45; Conger 1991, p. 166–67, no. 80; Sotheby’s, New York, sale 6132, January 30–February 2, 1991, lot 1459, now at Chipstone, and one at PMA (acc. no. 67–69–1). The Bayou Bend table’s carving relates to that on a slab table illustrated in Downs 1952, no. 359.
Book excerpt: Warren, David B., 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.
ProvenanceBy tradition George Ross (1730–1779), Philadelphia; inherited by his son George Ross (1752–1832); inherited by his daughter Eliza (Mrs. Abraham Carpenter, 1797–1871); inherited by her daughter Caroline Orrick Carpenter (Mrs. David G. Eshleman, 1828–1900); inherited by her grandson John Hobart MacMurdy, Jr. (1873–1944); [Albert Duveen (1892–1965), New York, by 1943]; [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, October 1943–October 28, 1952]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, October 28, 1952; given to MFAH, 1969.
Exhibition History
Published References The Magazine Antiques 60 (November 1951), p. 361; Comstock, Helen. American Furniture, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Century Styles. New York: Viking Press, 1962, no. 369; Warren, David B. ‘‘American Decorative Arts in Texas: The Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston.” The Magazine Antiques 90 (December 1966), p. 797; Warren, David B. Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975, p. 58, no. 110; Greenlaw, Barry A. “Ornamental and Plain: American Card Tables in the Bayou Bend Collection.” Theta Charity Antique Show Catalogue. Houston, 1978, p. 15; Freund, Thatcher. Objects of Desire. New York: Pantheon Books, 1993, p. 35. Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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