Massachusetts Governor John Endicott’s 1665 inventory included “A marble table, In the Hall,” one of the first references to the slab table. Endicott’s table was unusual in either England or America at this time. A group of Massachusetts Early Baroque slate-topped tables comprise the earliest surviving examples that relate to this form. A stone top, or slab, was ideally suited for dining and entertaining, being less vulnerable to heat or liquid than wood. The slab table was produced in Philadelphia by the Late Baroque period, but it was not prevalent until the Rococo. The carved urn ornamenting the Bayou Bend table’s skirt has been interpreted as a Neoclassical prelude, but more likely it was inspired by a Palladian element. 

Related examples: A privately owned side chair, said to have descended in the Fisher family, has an urn carved on its crest rail reminiscent of the one on the table’s skirt.

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.