Chippendale Fretwork-Carved Tea Table

Object Details

Object Essay

It was the long-accepted wisdom that very little important, high-style furniture was made in the South, particularly in the colonial era. Cultural and economic factors—the lack of many large towns, the plantation system, the planters’ credit with their agents in Great Britain, and the planters’ desire to imitate the English gentry, among others—led most wealthy colonists to purchase primarily imported English goods. Undoubtedly, there was a great deal of English furniture in use in the South before the Revolution. Recent scholarship, however, has shown that there were significant areas of native cabinetmaking.^{1_{For the most part, this research has been accomplished by Sumpter T. Priddy III, Luke Beckerdite, and scholars associated with the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and Williamsburg.}}

This magnificent and rare Virginia Chippendale-style table is a proud representative of one of these now-recognized local groups. Sophisticated and stylish by American standards of the time, it is, as might be expected, very English in character. The form was called a “China” table by Thomas Chippendale in the Director and described by him as a table “for holding each a Set of China and may be used as Tea-Tables.”^{2_{Chippendale, 7 and pl. 51. The term “silver table,” used by modern English publications, was not the preferred period term.}} Although the specific design of this table is not directly derived from the two patterns Chippendale illustrates, it is similar in combining a geometric, Chinese-style form with rococo ornament. The use of slender, turned columnar legs under applied panels of pierced fretwork is a particularly English feature. The Department of State’s table, however, is somewhat heavier in feeling than many typical English examples and lacks the pierced stretcher that is often seen.^{3_{For four typical English examples, see Cescinsky, 321. The Collection’s table has a replaced gallery; it is not known whether there is an original portion intact on which the rest was based. The original gallery was rabeted in. (See Gusler 1989, p. VII, for information on the only known china table with an original gallery.) While the skirt is original, three brackets have been replaced (now mahogany). Photographs of the table showed cuffs on the feet. Conservator Joseph Godla of Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities Conservation Lab, in conjunction with the furniture conservation department at Williamsburg, determined that these cuffs were incorrect; Godla undertook the conservation. Research assistance was provided by Wallace Gusler and Alan Miller.}}

This table is one of a group of six that have been attributed to the shop founded by Anthony Hay (working ca. 1751–1766), one of Williamsburg’s most illustrious craftsmen.^{4_{For detailed information on the Hay shop and related pieces, see Gusler 1979, 83–84 (the Collection’s table is fig. 52) and Gusler 1989, 1238–57 (the Collection’s table is fig. 2).}} Hay’s shop on Nicholson Street has been described as “unquestionably the most important cabinet shop in Williamsburg and one of the most important in America.”^{5_{Gusler 1979, 59.}} The Collection’s table may have been made during the brief period (1766–1770) when the London-trained cabinetmaker Benjamin Bucktrout was the second master of the Hay shop. According to Wallace Gusler, the unusual use of book-matched curly maple veneer for the top (called “fiddleback” construction) may be connected to the shop’s production of musical instruments, which Bucktrout advertised in the late 1760s.^{6_{Gusler 1989, 1241.}} Also, the carved fretwork of the legs in this and a very similar table is related to the blind fret carving on a fine, signed Masonic chair that was the product of the Hay shop ca. 1760.^{7_{This chair, now at Williamsburg, serves as the key to the attribution of a number of related pieces.}}

Gregory R. Weidman

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.