Dressing Table

Dateca. 1725

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

MediumBlack walnut, white cedar, and white pine.

DimensionsOH: 29 3/4"; OW: 36"; OD: 22 5/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1930-139

DescriptionAppearance: Dressing table, rectangular top with ovolu molding at each side and front; drawers at front consist of one wide central drawer with a bank at each side of two drawers graduated in height from bottom to top; skirt shaped at each side and at front; four legs with bulbous turnings at top, an inverted cone shape, and bulbous turnings at base; shaped saltire stretchers with old and possibly original urn-shaped finial at their intersection; turned feet of a flattened ball shape below bulbous turnings and above a slight disc.

Construction: front is half-blind dovetailed to sides; sides are half-blind dovetailed to back; rectangular blocks glued inside each corner of case and behind drawer dividers; outer drawer supports with integral guides are notched around and nailed into the corner glue blocks; inner drawer supports and integral guides are notched around and nailed into glue blocks behind drawer dividers and tenoned into the case backboard; a thin board is nailed inside case backboard below lowest drawer supports; a flat board is glued to the inside of each case side in the space behind the upper and lower drawer supports between the corner glue blocks; top is nailed or pegged to case; legs are tenoned into case corner glue blocks; stretchers are lapped at center with thin board (modern) under joint for support and another smaller thin board at center; finial tenoned through center of stretchers; legs or feet are tenoned through the stretchers and into the feet or legs; drawers have traditional dovetail construction with flat bottoms glued into rabbets in the front and sides and to the underside of the back (nails, possibly added, once reinforced bottom on largest drawer); top edges of drawer sides rounded; drawer front lipped at top but flush with sides and bottom while still thumbnail molded.

Woods: Primary: black walnut Secondary: Atlantic white cedar drawer sides and bottoms; white pine drawer supports.
Label TextDressing tables were usually paired with a matching high chest of drawers. The combination went out of fashion in England at the end of the seventeenth century, but continued to be popular in Philadelphia and New England an additional century. The turned trumpet-shaped legs and flat cruciform stretchers of this early baroque style table were highly fashionable in America until around 1720.

InscribedScratched into the backboard "Rawle/ M / Rawle" and "Mary".

Chalk numbers in inner corners of drawers (most worn away but some remain); one small drawer has "5" in chalk in the inner center of the back.
MarkingsNone found
ProvenanceStated to have been recovered in Tidewater Virginia or near the Virginia line in Maryland. (Letter from L. G. Myers to W. G. Perry, October 30, 1930).

Exhibition(s)