Chamber Table

This chamber table is raised on turned legs and features a paneled storage sec­tion, accessed by a lift top, above one drawer. Originally intended for use in the bedroom as a toilet or dressing table, it is part of a group decorated with painted highlights, often red and black. In some cases, as here, traces of a leafy tree ornament remain within the panels. While the majority of examples of this genre have the conventional vase-and-ring turnings on the legs, this table and two others were made with bobbin turnings.

Technical notes: Red oak (right rear post, right lower case rail), eastern white pine (drawer front, case backboard), soft maple (knobs), hemlock (drawer stop). The drawer is side-hung. The drawer construction is dove­tailed; the bottom is a single slab of wood let into the front and nailed to the sides and back. Drawer sides are half lapped at back. The drawer knobs, end cleats, front panel moldings, and drawer moldings are not original.

Related examples: Two with bobbin turnings: Nutting 1962, no. 213; Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan (Lockwood 1957, no. 236). This latter example, however, is made of maple. Others with vase-and-ring turnings: Brooklyn Museum (Comstock 1962, no. 58); Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Ver­mont (Winchester 1957b, p. 442); Winterthur (Forman 1970, fig. 7); New-York Historical So­ciety; Nutting 1962, nos. 214-16; advertisement of Israel Sack, Antiques 4 (July 1923), p. C-2; Sanford 1947, p.184; Landman 1975, p. 930; Sack 1969–92, vol. 3, p. 602, no. 1370; Levy Gallery 1992, p. 6, no. 1. The painted ornament of these toilet tables relates to a group of one-drawer chests in Comstock 1962, no. 66; Nutting 1962, no. 53.

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.