Pembroke Table

Date1790-1800

MediumMahogany, yellow pine (by microanalysis), oak, tulip poplar, maple, and boxwood.

DimensionsOH:28 3/4" OW: 39" OD: 28"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1990-232

DescriptionAppearance: breakfast table with single drawer; rectangular top with two drop leaves and string inlay; straight end rails with patera and string inlays; four tapered square legs with bellflower inlays; original brass and leather casters.

Construction: The inner rails are tenoned into the legs, and the fixed hinge rails are nailed to the inner rails. Two battens, dovetailed across the top and bottom of the inner rails, span the frame. The drawer runners and stops are nailed to the inner rails. Steel screws set in wells secure the table top to the frame, as do numerous small glue blocks. The bottom panel of the dovetailed drawer is set into grooves at the front and sides and is flush-nailed at the rear. It is further reinforced on each side with a pair of widely spaced glue blocks. The drawer front is of yellow pine faced with mahogany veneer.

Materials: Mahogany top, leaves, legs, drawer front veneer, and end rail veneers; oak outer rails; yellow pine (microanalysis) inner rails, medial rails, drawer front core, end rail cores, and drawer glue blocks; tulip poplar drawer sides, drawer back, drawer bottom, drawer runners, drawer stops, and top glue blocks; maple and boxwood inlays.

Label TextThe residual influence of British furniture design in the post-Revolutionary South is again demonstrated in this Potomac valley breakfast table. The cross banding of the top in figured mahogany and the use of large classical inlays, ornate brasses, and delicate casters give the object a strongly British appearance.

While the table has no known provenance, several features suggest an origin in Alexandria, a northern Virginia seaport that was briefly ceded to the District of Columbia during the early national period. Other Alexandria furniture forms also display chains of concave-sided bellflowers that do not decrease proportionally with the taper of the leg, as is usual on formal neoclassical furniture. A very similar arrangement appears on a secretary and bookcase that descended in the Lawrence Lewis family of Alexandria (Mount Vernon collection) and on a sideboard found in that city in the early 1940s. The secretary features drawer construction identical to that seen in the table and a similar reliance on patera inlays. Both may represent the work of a single shop.

Because breakfast tables were used for a wide variety of functions, many were constructed with casters to increase portability. Most casters were made entirely of brass, but some examples, like those on the CWF table, feature brass axles with laminated leather wheels. These were likely designed to reduce noise and minimize damage to floors and floor coverings.

InscribedNone
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceThe table was purchased at a New York City auction in 1990 by Richmond, Va., antiques dealer Sumpter Priddy III, from whom it was acquired by CWF. No earlier history is known.