Serpentine-front card tables are the most original and dynamic Rococo furniture forms produced in New York. The design, which appears to have originated there, is characterized by its serpentine facade and the addition of a fifth leg that pivots outward to support the opened top. The knees are ornamented with either a carved leaf or C-scroll design, and the front rail with gadrooning or foliate carving. Typically, the top is cut out for a baize liner, coins and counters, and to accommodate a candlestick at each corner. More than seventy-five examples are recorded, representing several distinct shop traditions; the only one identified is that of Marinus Willett and Jonathan Pearsee, to which the Bayou Bend table is attributed.

Related examples: Morrison Heckscher’s initial study (Heckscher 1973) classifies the Bayou Bend table as Type I, the Van Rensselaer, Group B. Nine other tables are recorded: Monkhouse and Michie 1986, p. 139, no. 77; Barquist, Garrett, and Ward 1992, pp. 46, 167–69, no. 74; Levy 1993, pp. 760–61; one belonging to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (acc. no. 44–12); the remainder in private collections, one with the chalk signature “Willet.”

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.