Images(6)

Card Table

Date1755-1770

Attributed to Anthony Hay

Attributed to Benjamin Bucktrout (d. 1813)

Attributed to Edmund Dickinson

Attributed to Wiltshire

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Williamsburg

MediumMahogany and yellow pine (all by microanalysis).

DimensionsOverall: 27 1/2 x 33 3/8 x 16 1/2in. (69.9 x 84.8 x 41.9cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1932-12

DescriptionAppearance: single leaf card table; top with projecting squared corners; inner surface of top with four square depressions for candlesticks and four oval depressions for counters; inner surface of top originally lined with textile or leather; front and side rails with recessed center sections and straight lower edges; rear hinge rails finished; small drawer concealed behind swing hinge rail, and inner face of rail relieved at center to allow clearance of drawer pull; four cabriole legs (one hinged) with ball-and-claw feet; knees carved with tilted C-scroll and pendant rococo foliage (rear faces of rear legs uncarved); each leg flanked by two voluted knee blocks; when closed, swing leg is concealed behind left side rail.

Construction: Both leaves are fashioned from single boards, and the lower leaf is secured to the frame with four screws set in wells in the front and rear rails. The top was originally further supported by four two-and-one-half to three-inch glue blocks, now missing. The blocked ends of the front and side rails are laminations. The rear ends of the side rails are dovetailed to the inner rear rail. The fixed hinge rail is flush-mounted to the inner rear rail and secured with six rosehead nails driven from the inside. A medial rail is dovetailed to the tops of the inner rear rail and the front rail and was originally nailed in place. The replaced drawer is supported on two single-piece rabbeted runners tenoned into the front and inner rear rails, and a drawer kicker is glued to the underside of the top. Single-piece knee blocks are glued to the legs and the bottom edges of the rails. The swing hinge rail pivots on a finger hinge that projects through the inner rear rail when open.

Materials: Mahogany (by microanalysis) top, front rail, side rails, hinge rails, legs, knee blocks, and drawer kicker; yellow pine (by microanalysis) inner rear rail, drawer runners, and medial brace.
Label TextThis early card table has no known history prior to its discovery in Petersburg, Virginia, in 1931, but its structure and design tie it firmly to several other examples with southeastern Virginia associations. The three earliest include a pair of tables that descended in the Eyre family at the lower tip of the Eastern Shore, forty-five miles east of Williamsburg. A nearly identical example was first owned by the Semple family of New Kent County, northwest of the capital.

Despite outward differences between the legs and knee blocks of the Eyre and Semple tables and those of the CWF example, these four card tables appear to be the work of a single shop. All feature textile-lined tops with projecting squared corners, square reserves for candlesticks, and oval pockets for game counters. Each has deep rails with vertically laminated blocked ends and straight lower edges and an opening for a small drawer behind the swing hinge rail, although only one of the drawers survives. Perhaps most unifying of all is the unusual design of the swing leg. When closed, the top of the movable leg on each table drops behind a thin (five-sixteenths-inch) projection of the left side rail.

A fifth table, known only through a circa 1900 photograph of the John Tayloe House in Williamsburg, is almost certainly from the same shop (CWF archives). Although without the square and oval depressions, its top displays the same overall shape as the other four tables, and its blocked and laminated rails follow their lead as well. The table's cabriole legs, deeply voluted knee blocks, and carved ball-and-claw feet are virtually identical to those on the CWF table. Coarsely carved C-scrolls and acanthus foliage on the knees of both tables also compare well.

Archeological evidence suggests that these tables were made in a Williamsburg building successively occupied by cabinetmakers Anthony Hay, Benjamin Bucktrout, and Edmund Dickinson between the 1750s and 1776. The lambriquin-shaped knees on the Eyre and Semple tables, rarely seen on American furniture, are nearly identical to those on a cherry and yellow pine sideboard table originally owned by the Irby family of Sussex County (MESDA collection). The Irby table has pad feet that rest on distinctive inverted-trumpet-shaped disks that mimic the disk on an unfinished mid-eighteenth-century easy chair leg excavated from the site of the shop where Hay, Bucktrout, and Dickinson plied their trade.

The connection to Williamsburg is further strengthened by the slanted C-scroll and pendant rococo foliage carved on the knees of the two tables with cabriole legs. A similar design appears on the knees of two ceremonial chairs with strong ties to Williamsburg (acc. nos. 1930-215 and 1991-5). The knees on the card tables and on the two chairs were clearly carved by three different artisans. It is quite possible that one or both of the chairs provided design inspiration for the carving on the tables.

Card tables of this general form--with cabriole legs, blocked rails, and projecting square-cornered tops--were popular in several colonial centers. Comparatively ornate examples with extensive carving and heavily shaped rails were made in Boston, Newport, and New York; "neat and plain" models, more akin to those from Virginia, were produced in Charleston, South Carolina. Although British card tables unquestionably served as the prototypes for all of the American versions, tradesmen in each colony molded and adjusted the form to suit local tastes.

InscribedNone
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceThe table was advertised in THE ANTIQUARIAN in May 1931 by H. C. Valentine and Company, antiques dealers of Richmond, Va. The advertisement noted that the table was found in Petersburg, Va. Israel Sack purchased that table shortly afterward and sold it to CWF in December 1931.

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