Card Table

CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Card Table
Datec. 1755–1800
Made inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumMahogany; yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, white oak, and hickory
DimensionsOpen: 27 3/8 × 35 1/4 × 34 1/2 in. (69.6 × 89.5 × 87.6 cm)
Closed: 28 1/4 × 35 1/4 × 17 1/4 in. (71.8 × 89.5 × 43.8 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.70.23
Current Location
Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Drawing Room
Exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Object Type
Description

The name “Marlborough” as a furniture term is unique to eighteenth-century America, although its exact relationship to this type of leg is not clear. According to the Philadelphia price lists, card tables with Marlborough supports were the least expensive of the three models available. They could be either plain, molded, or, like the present example, ornamented with fretwork carving. The most expensive, incorporating bases, brackets, carved moldings, and a drawer, was priced at four pounds, or 80 percent of what the basic card table with round corners cost (see B.69.19). The Bayou Bend table is among the most fully developed examples of this type, incorporating both Chinese and Gothic designs into its fretwork.

Related examples: Marlborough-legged card tables with fretwork carving include Comstock 1957a, p. 256, no. 9. Similar fretwork appears on Philadelphia cabinetmaker John Folwell’s speaker’s chair (Hornor 1977, pl. 97). Related chairs are published in Hornor 1977, pl. 260; Monkhouse and Michie 1986, pp. 167–68, no. 109. The Gothic skirt and the gadrooning as well are virtually identical to those defining the seat rail of the great Chew sofa.

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.


ProvenanceProfessor Samuel Claggett Chew (1888–1960) [1]; [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, by 1962]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1970; given to MFAH, 1970.

[1] A purely conjectural history begins with Samuel Lloyd Chew (1737–1790); inherited by his son John Hamilton Chew (1771–1830); inherited by his son Dr. Samuel Chew (1806–1863); inherited by his son Dr. Samuel Claggett Chew (1837–1915); inherited by his son, Professor Samuel Claggett Chew (1880–1960).
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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Card Table
c. 1785–1820
Mahogany, satinwood, and unidentified inlay; yellow-poplar, white oak, hickory, and southern yellow pine
B.69.129
Sofa
c. 1750–1801
Mahogany; red oak, yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, white oak, and eastern white pine
B.59.73
Slab Table
c. 1760–1800
Mahogany; southern yellow pine, white oak, and yellow-poplar; marble
B.59.82
Chest-on-Chest
c. 1760–1800
Mahogany; mahogany, Atlantic white cedar, yellow-poplar, white oak, and southern yellow pine
B.69.74
scan from file photograph
c. 1750–1800
Mahogany; eastern white pine, birch, southern yellow pine, and hickory
B.76.163
scan from file photograph
c. 1750–1800
Mahogany; southern yellow pine, eastern white pine, and yellow-poplar; marble
B.69.67
Dressing Table
c. 1760–1800
Mahogany; southern yellow pine, yellow-poplar, and Atlantic white cedar
B.58.147
High Chest of Drawers
c. 1750–1800
Mahogany; chestnut, southern yellow pine, eastern white pine, and yellow-poplar
B.69.89
High Chest of Drawers
c. 1760–1800
Mahogany; mahogany, Atlantic white cedar, cedar, southern yellow pine, and yellow-poplar
B.69.75
Side Chair (one of a pair)
c. 1755–1800
Mahogany; yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, and Atlantic white cedar
B.69.77.1
Side Chair (one of a pair)
c. 1755–1800
Mahogany; yellow-poplar, southern yellow pine, and Atlantic white cedar
B.69.77.2
Side Chair
c. 1755–1800
Mahogany; southern yellow pine, Atlantic white cedar, and yellow-poplar
B.69.80