Object Details
Object Essay
Inspired by contemporary wooden tea trays and silver salvers, tripod tables with elaborately shaped edges were both useful and ornamental. The “birdcage” device at the top of the baluster allowed the top to rotate for easier service of tea and also to stand vertically in a corner of a room when not in use. An English observer writing from Philadelphia in 1828 noted that “instead of japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea boards and round tea tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the center, stood upright, like an expanded fan or palm leaf, in the corner.”1Hornor 1931, 38–40, 71.
Tea tables of this kind were itemized by the Philadelphia cabinetmaker James Gillingham as “mahogany tea table, top scalloped, claw feet and leaves on the knees” for £5. As with smaller folding stands (see Acc. No. 76.77), these embellishments were optional, added to a plain model according to the patron’s taste and means.2Gillingham 1930, 288–306. The unknown maker of this table took unusual care to shape both the sides and the ends of the cleats that secure the top to the tilting mechanism.
The turning of the pillar, with the widest portion near the top, is the inverse of the more common configuration of flattened ball turnings on Philadelphia tables from the second half of the 18th century (see Acc. No. 79.1).3The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Luke Beckerdite and Alan Miller, who first identified this table and noted its similarity to another early tea table at Bayou Bend. Enlivened by double reel turnings at the base, its turned supports evoke the baroque sense of instability of late 17th-century furniture and of inverted pear-shaped teapots in the rococo style (see Acc. No. 66.97.3).4For an English or Dutch example at Bayou Bend, see Schiffer, Schiffer, and Schiffer, 341. The author wishes to thank Michael K. Brown, Curator, Bayou Bend, for his help on research of their related table. The scalloped edge of the top is divided into twelve segments rather than the ten typically found on later tea tables. The symmetrically carved shells and husks on the legs also relate to contemporary chairs and a small group of other early tables left uncarved above the knees.5See Warren 1975, no. 62; Heckscher 1985, nos. 129–30; Monkhouse and Michie, no. 74; and Sotheby’s, New York, Sale 5500, October 24–25, 1986, Lot 223a. An English George II table with a similarly turned baluster was sold at the William Doyle Galleries, New York, 17th and 18th Century English and Continental Furniture, January 25, 1989.
Thomas S. Michie
Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.