Tea Table
- Tea Table
(With tabletop upright): 43 1/16 × 28 in. (109.3 × 71.1 cm)
Explore Further
Charleston was the principal southern urban center in the eighteenth century. As its culture and economy were closely tied to Britain through trade and immigration, vast quantities of English-made furniture were imported into the city. Concurrently, Charlestonians sustained a sizable cabinet trade comprised of journeymen, apprentices, and slave labor. The Bayou Bend tea table exemplifies the quality of craftsmanship available, and the pervasive English influence in its undercut scrolls.
Related examples: Most closely related is another Charleston table (Rhode Island History 31, nos. 2–3 [May–August 1972], inside front cover). A table with a similar baluster support is illustrated in Burton 1955, fig. 130.
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.
ProvenanceBy descent in the Middleton family, Charleston, South Carolina [1]; [...]; [George (1901–1988) and Benny Arons (1898–1978), Ansonia, Connecticut], by 1947; purchased by [Ginsburg & Levy, New York, 1947–1961]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1961; given to MFAH, by 1966.
[1] Newton W. Elwell, Colonial Furniture and Interiors (Boston, Massachusetts: Geo.H. Polley & Company, 1896), pl. LX.
Exhibition History
Published References The Magazine Antiques 91 (January 1967), p. 107; Warren, David B. Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975, p. 56, no. 104. Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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