This small, multipurpose oval table with drop leaves reflects the eighteenth-century interest in conserving space when furniture was not in use. The use of shaped brackets, which support the open leaves, seems to have been particularly popular in Connecticut. That feature caused the form to be called butterfly in the twentieth century.

Related examples: Yale (Barquist, Garrett, and Ward 1992, nos. 46, 47); Wadsworth (Kirk 1967, nos. 142, 144); MMA (acc. nos. 52.77.54, 10.125.124).

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.