Images(7)

Card table

Dateca. 1800

OriginAmerica, Maryland, Baltimore

MediumMahogany, oak, white pine, tulip poplar, black walnut, and light and dark wood inlays.

DimensionsOH: 30"; OW: 36 1/8"; OD open: 35 1/2"; OD closed: 17 5/8"

Credit LineGift of Gertrude H. and Roger W. Peck in memory of John C. Toland

Object number1968-733

DescriptionAppearance: table with kidney- shaped ends and recessed serpentine central section; leaves with plain surfaces and double strung edges; front and side rails with strung panels on figured mahogany ground; four tapered legs (two in rear swing) concentric rectangular inlay panels on all four pilasters; outermost surface on each leg with simple stringing and a chain of four graduated three-part husks separated by dots; eleven-part cuff inlays; original red wash applied to hinge rails and outer surface of inner rear rail; rear leaf edge tenon protrudes from lower leaf.

Construction: Each leaf is cut from a single board, and the top is secured to the frame with five screws driven through wells in the front, side, and inner rear rails. The front and side rails are veneered on four-part horizontal laminations that are shaped on the interior. A single large dovetail attaches each end of the inner rear rail to the corresponding side rail and is reinforced with a quarter-round vertically grained glue block. A wooden pin protrudes from each of these dovetails and fits into a corresponding hole in each swing leg when the table is closed. The medial rail is either tenoned or dovetailed into the front and inner rear rails. The central fixed hinge rail and a spacer block of nearly the same size are secured to the inner rear rail with glue and nails driven from the inside. The presence of the spacer block results in a broad void between the inner rear rail and each swing hinge rail. Both swing legs pivot on knuckle joints and overlap the ends of the side rails when closed.

Materials: Mahogany leaves, legs, front rail veneer, and side rail veneer; oak hinge rails and laminations for front and side rails; white pine inner rear rail and glue blocks; tulip poplar medial rail and spacer block; black walnut cuff and pilaster inlays; light and dark wood remaining inlays.
Label TextThis Baltimore card table is atypical of the neoclassical game tables produced in that city in a number of ways. It does not feature the patterned stringing seen on most Baltimore tables, and, except for the bellflowers on the legs, there are no pictorial inlays. The kidney-shaped top was a design standard in Philadelphia but was little used in Baltimore. The relative plainness of the table and its reliance on plain stringing are also clear allusions to Philadelphia taste. Even so, other parts of the table's decorative scheme and, more important, its structural details betray a Baltimore origin.

The table features a combination of two stationary legs and two swing legs, an approach that was extremely common in Baltimore but rarely used elsewhere in America. The presence of a medial rail is also strongly indicative of Baltimore work, as is the prominent use of oak and tulip poplar in the framing. The three-part shaded bellflowers with their elongated central petals and dot inlays are found on many pieces of Baltimore furniture; so, too, are the rectangular veneer panels on the pilasters. Individually, most of these elements can be found in card tables from other cabinet centers; taken together, they strongly point toward production in Baltimore.

That this table reflects the Philadelphia style may represent a vestige of the considerable influence that city had on the Baltimore cabinet trade during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. It is far more likely, however, that the pattern for the table arrived in Maryland with an immigrant Philadelphia artisan or was adapted from a published illustration. By the 1790s, Baltimore's explosive economic growth had made it the equal of Philadelphia in matters of cultural and stylistic influence, a fact that is reinforced by the rarity of tables like this one in early national Baltimore.

Inscribed"D732/75" is written in black ink on the underside of the lower leaf.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceInherited by donors from John C. Toland, the noted early twentieth-century Baltimore collector of American furniture.