- Table
Closed: 27 5/8 × 17 × 48 1/2 in. (70.1 × 43.2 × 123.2 cm)
Explore Further
The Early Baroque period saw the advent of folding oval dining tables. This is an unusual example made of walnut, rather than the more common maple. At various times this table has been ascribed to Rhode Island, on the basis of the chestnut used as a secondary wood, and to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the basis of the boldly carved paintbrush feet. However, it seems appropriate to assign this example to Boston, where chestnut was also employed in furniture. No documented Rhode Island tables with paintbrush feet have been identified, and Portsmouth feet were made with solid construction rather than pieced, the Boston norm, as in this table.
Technical notes: Black walnut (drop leaf, drawer front, lower stretcher); soft maple (gateleg rail, rail between gatelegs), chestnut (drawer bottom), and eastern white pine (center rail underneath drawer). The drawer construction is dovetailed, the bottom board nailed. Hinges and drawer knob are replacements. Top of leg posts have been beveled.
Related examples: Art Institute of Chicago (Naeve 1981, p.18); Williamsburg (Greenlaw 1974, p. 156, no. 135); Historic Deerfield (Fales 1976, p. 117, no. 239); Winterthur (Comstock 1957c, p. 59); Wadsworth (Nutting 1962, no. 963); W. K. duPont Collection (Kennedy and Sack 1977, no. 27); Christie’s, New York, sale 7924, June 22, 1994, lot 209. All these examples, save the one at Winterthur, have pieced feet.
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.
Provenance[John S. Walton (1908–1985), New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1959; given to MFAH, by 1966.
Exhibition History
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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