The bureau table was intended for the bedchamber, which in the eighteenth century functioned as both a public and private space. An eighteenth-century English architect commented on this duality: “A dressing-room in the house of a person of fashion is a room of consequence, not only for its natural use in being the place of dressing, but for the several persons who are seen there. The morning is a time many choose for dispatching business; and as persons of this rank are not to be supposed to wait for people of that kind, they naturally give themselves orders to come about a certain hour, and admit them while they are dressing.”

Bureau tables functioned in a variety of ways. Some had a hinged top drawer that dropped down to reveal a desk interior. Such tables likely had a dressing glass set on top. Others, like the Bayou Bend table, were intended for personal grooming, with an adjustable mirror and fitted compartments for cosmetics, combs, brushes, scissors, razors, and other personal accouterments. 

In Rhode Island the bureau table was a popular form, as attested by the survival of more than fifty examples. The typical case is blocked, culminating in a series of convex and concave shells, the overall effect reminiscent of an architectural arcade. Traditionally these tables are assigned to Newport; however, it is plausible that Providence craftsmen also supplied their prominent locals. 

Technical notes: Mahogany; mahogany (interior sliding panel, secret drawer front), eastern white pine (foot blocks, drawer runners), chestnut (drawer sides and bottoms), soft maple (prospect cabinet partitions, panel beneath top drawer, rear rail support for the top drawer), yellow-poplar (writing board), cedrela (writing board frame). The foot blocks are triangular. A filler was let in between the side bracket feet. The bottom is recessed and runners were introduced for the two bottom drawers. The drawer bottoms are chamfered and slid into a rabbet but not nailed. The prospect door is framed with a thin, beaded strip. Inside, it reveals two shelves. The top drawer when closed rests on a bracket attached to the back. The top drawer retains its original fittings, but the hinged writing board seems to be an addition. The brasses are probably original. Inside the back of the large drawer is what appears to be the letter A. The bank of small drawers are numbered for orientation. The bottom drawer is inscribed: “a.w. mende 1943.”

Related examples: This is the only Rhode Island bureau table outfitted as a dressing table. Its configuration, most notably the prospect door with its rectangular panel, relates most closely to Moses 1984, pp. 34, 332.

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.