Tea table

DateCa. 1745

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Rappahannock River Basin

MediumBlack walnut

DimensionsOH: 28 1/4"; OW: 28 7/8"; OD: 22"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1999-71

DescriptionAppearance: Rectangular tea table with molded tray top overhanging skirt; deep rectangular frame with extensively arched and shaped aprons with pendant drops in center of long sides; cabriole legs with pointed pad or "slipper" feet and deeply molded partial knee scrolls.

Construction: The four board top is joined to the shaped rails with screws from wells in the rails. The joining is reinforced with glue blocks (now replaced). The rails are tenoned into the legs. Knee blocks are glued to the rails and legs. Top moldings are glued to the edges of the top. Slipper (pointed pad) feet are integral with the legs.
Label TextThis elegant and diminutive tea table bears all the hallmarks of mid eighteenth-century Irish furniture. The bandy cabriole legs, sharply pointed feet, and deep, exuberantly shaped sides are identical to those on tables and other furniture from Dublin, Limerick, and Shannon. Yet this object was never in Ireland. It was made on the shores of Tidewater Virginia's Rappahannock River about 1750. Research has demonstrated that at least two still unidentified Irish cabinetmakers settled in or near one of the small towns on the Rappahannock shortly before that time. The artisans' surviving works confirm that each continued to make furniture in the Irish manner. As with the other products of their shops, only the table's Virginia associations and its execution in North American black walnut reveal its origin.
ProvenanceEx. Coll: J. K. Beard, ca. 1930.
Weschler's Auction, Washington, DC, May 8, 1999, lot. 203.

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