The sideboard was introduced during the Neoclassical period. George Hepplewhite remarked, “The great utility of this piece of furniture has procured it a very general reception; and the conveniences it affords render a dining-room incomplete without a sideboard.” Indeed, the sideboard proved invaluable, being used to store silver flatware, napkins, tablecloths, and spirits. 

Technical notes: Mahogany, unidentified inlay; eastern white pine (framing boards on the underside of the top, sides, partitions, back, back section of the bottom, the left and right drawer fronts, bottoms, and blocks, the upper and lower laminations of the central drawer, drawer runners), yellow-poplar (framing on the underside of the top, drawer sides and backs, central drawer bottom, middle lamination of the drawer front), black cherry (drawer dividers, doors, bottom below the doors, and leg posts). The hardware is original.

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.