In spite of efforts to legislate card playing in colonial Boston, the large number of surviving game tables demonstrates that playing whist, loo, faro, and quadrille was a widely accepted social activity. By the post-Revolutionary period card tables became increasingly prevalent and were often made in pairs, indicative of growing prosperity. Moreover, in keeping with the ideal of achieving balance within the neoclassical interior they functioned as matching side tables when not used for gaming. American examples in a vast array of shapes, and with a range of regional characteristics, are known in even greater numbers than were made in Britain at the time. Though tables with this shape—square with ovolo corners—were produced in almost every American urban center, this one has distinctive features that identify it as a Boston area example. These include construction techniques, its tripartite facade, and the prominent inlaid panel adapted from the Great Seal of the United States.

Related examples: The card table is one of at least ten Boston examples with this patriotic motif. Today, half of these are found in public collections: Yale University Art Gallery, Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U. S. Department of State, and the Henry Ford history museum. Only one of the ten has come down with any documentation, and it is marked by a retailer, William Leverett, rather than a cabinetmaker. Variations within this group indicate that these tables are not from the hand of a single craftsman, but instead represent the collaboration of several workshops working with individuals such as John Dewhurst, a “banding and stringing maker,” listed in the Boston city directory for 1809. In fact, because these inlays were produced by specialists, they appear to have been adopted by craftsmen working even as far away as New York City.