Card tables were intended as multifunctional domestic furniture. When the table was not used for gaming its top was folded over, in this instance revealing a pictorial inlay, so that it could function as a side or pier table. The Bayou Bend table’s playing surface is fabric-covered; however, by this date most tables’ interiors were finished simply, the counter and candle recesses of the earlier periods no longer deemed a necessity. In contrast with Maryland furniture of the Rococo period, Maryland’s Neoclassical furniture is more readily identifiable; in the Bayou Bend table, the use of veneered panels framed by contrasting bands and floral inlays, combined with regional construction practices, indicates Baltimore cabinetry.

Technical notes: Mahogany, satinwood, unidentified inlay; yellow-poplar (front rail’s middle lamination), white oak (hinged back rail), hickory (hinge pin), southern yellow pine (fixed back rail, glue blocks). The cuffs are veneered on all four sides and the front and sides of each leg stile are inlaid. Typical of Baltimore, both rear legs pivot outward on five-part hinges. The skirt rails consist of four horizontal laminations, the bottom two being comparable in height to each of the others. The lower of the two larger laminants is composed of two segments. The interior back is flush with the fly legs. The hinged outer rail is screwed to the interior one. A single, leaf-edge helps secure the opened top. The playing surface corresponds to George Hepplewhite’s recommendation that it be “lined with green cloth.” (Hepplewhite 1969, p. 12). Underneath is a typed label: “641-From Auction of L.G. Myers Collection of Early American Furniture at American Art Association Rooms, February 26th, 1921.... This is the finest American-made table of the type that has come down to the writer’s knowledge. It was found in Maryland, but is doubtless of Philadelphia origin.”

Related examples: Baltimore 1947, pp. 24–25, no. 1; Montgomery 1966b, pp. 325–26, no. 291; Antiques 91 (January 1967), p. 113.

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.