Tea table

Date1750-1780

OriginAmerica, North Carolina, Chowan County

MediumAll components of mahogany.

DimensionsOH: 27 1/4"; OW: 32 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1996-20

DescriptionAPPEARANCE: Round tea table with unmolded top; open-ended box shaped bird cage; straight-tapered classical column with urn below and bottom turned pendant; plain cabriole legs with indented lower edges and voluted terminal capped by applied, turned bosses; pad feet.

CONSTRUCTION: The top is supported on two full-width battens that are screwed in place from below. The dovetailed box at the top of the shaft is further secured on the inside with large horizontal glue blocks. The box is attached to the battens with traditional birdcage pintles. The legs are set into dovetail slots on the bottom of the shaft. Small turned bosses are sprig-nailed to the volutes on the legs. The large turned boss at the bottom of the shaft is nailed in place.
Label TextThis northeastern North Carolina tea table resembles countless other late colonial examples in nearly every way except one. In place of a conventional pillared "birdcage," the top is supported on a dovetailed mahogany box open at both ends. Like the birdcage, the box mechanism enables the table top to rotate when it is horizontal and serves as a hinged brace when the top is placed in its vertical position between uses. By no means a southern invention, box supports mimic those on provincial British tea tables and candlestands of the same date. The box form was rarely employed by American cabinetmakers except in North Carolina, where it was made in several shops along the colony's coastline.

An unidentified artisan working in the vicinity of Edenton, a small seaport in Chowan County, produced the CWF table. Although the table has only vague historical associations with that area, it is clearly from the same shop that made several other tables and candlestands with Chowan histories, including a rare pair of tea tables that descended in the Johnston family (MESDA research file 12,173). Tables in the group are united by their common use of thin unmolded tops supported by dovetailed boxes and thick blunt-ended battens. They also share very similar urn-and-shaft balusters, relief carving along the lower edges of the legs, and the use of a large turned boss nailed to the underside of the baluster. Minor variations appear at the base of the baluster: on the Johnston tables the relief carving terminates in small carved volutes while the carving on the CWF table ends with small sprig-nailed bosses. A related shop in the same area produced similar tables that additionally feature ornamental piercing on the legs. Once again, all of these details parallel British practices.

A mahogany and oak tea table with a history of ownership in the Joshua Wright family of Wilmington demonstrates that dovetailed box supports were also produced in southeastern North Carolina. The Wright table, which exhibits completely different leg and baluster details and a support box with an enclosed rear facade, was obviously made by an artisan trained in a tradition unrelated to that of the Chowan County tables. It is likely that the dovetailed box concept was introduced to each area by a different immigrant British woodworker.

InscribedThe number "28" and an illegible word are written in chalk on the underside of the top. "Leary" appears in chalk on the top of the box.
MarkingsNone.
ProvenanceThe table reportedly descended through the Leary family of North Carolina, who moved to Saugerties, N. Y., in the early twentieth century. It was sold by the family to an intermediate source, who then sold the table to antiques dealer Randall Huber of Douglassville, Pa., in 1996. CWF acquired the table from Huber later the same year.