These pedestal card tables, with three saber legs, display a type produced in New York City in the first decade of the nineteenth century and described in the 1810 price book as “eliptic pillar and clawfoot.” Often made in pairs, these tables carry an unusual leg arrangement, which facilitated the placement of the piece against the wall when not in use; when the table is opened, the rear legs swing backward 45 degrees to provide stability. The finest examples are richly ornamented with highly figured mahogany veneers and typically carved with water leaves on the legs and vase. The cross-banded tablet at the center of the skirt of these tables is unusual.

Technical notes: Mahogany, mahogany veneer; eastern white pine (laminated front apron), brass (casters). The brass casters are original.

Related examples: While traditionally assigned to the shop of Duncan Phyfe, such an attribution is unwarranted given that the type appears in the 1810 price book and a similar example at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan, bears the stamp of Michael Allison (Comstock 1962, no. 559). Other examples are at Winterthur (Montgomery 1966b, no. 314); a pair, ex coll. Ronald Kane (Christie’s, New York, sale 7822, January 22, 1994, lot 431); Kaufman Collection, Norfolk, Virginia (Flanigan 1986, p. 186, no. 74); a satinwood pair, MFA, Boston (Comstock 1962, no. 558); Sack 1969–92, vol. 10, p. 2713, no. P5752.

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.