Newport, Rhode Island
This round “snap” table is one of only nine other tables in this unusual design known: one at the Museum Fine Arts, Boston; one at the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London, Connecticut; one at the Newport Restoration Foundation; one formerly owned by Herbert Newton (present location unknown); one at Winterthur Museum; one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and two others offered at auction in 1969 and 1981. All tables in the group have circular tops, triangular platforms, and cabriole legs. Despite the similarity of design, the tables vary considerably in size, materials, construction, and decoration. Most are fitted with a cabinet between the outer columns. The currently offered example, a table at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and one which sold by Sotheby Park Bernet are the only known examples with [only] columns. Winterthur’s table is the largest of the group and is the only one with a shaped-lower-edge to the platform. The tables at the Museum Fine Arts, Boston, Lyman Allyn Museum (Connecticut) and the Newport Restoration Foundation both have the five-toed paw feet found on some Newport stands. Newport cabinetmakers also produced a similar triangular platform with four-toed paw feet that was used extensively on fire screens. The platform base is an English design. Ince and Mayhew included a teakettle stand with a platform base in The Universal System of Household Furniture.
Of the seven tables in the group, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the example offered at Sotheby, Parke Bernet in 1981 both reputedly were made by John Goddard. The table at the Lyman Allyn Museum’s history states that it was owned in the late eighteenth century by John and Sarah (Starr) Deshon of New London.
The example in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is very closely related to the table being offered here. It was acquired by the early scholar of Rhode Island furniture, Duncan Hazard. He acquired it directly from the estate of the great-great granddaughter of John Goddard. It was made by John Goddard as a gift for his daughter Catherine upon the occasion of her marriage to Perry Weaver. The table descended in the family until being sold to Mr. Hazard (in, or prior to 1929). See Edwin J. Hipkiss, Eighteenth-Century American Arts: The M. and M. Karolik collection of paintings, drawings, engravings, furniture, silver, needlework & incidental objects gathered to illustrate the achievements of American artists and craftsmen of the period from 1720 to 1820, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1941), pp. 110-1, no. 59.
The Sotheby’s example sold in the Important Americana: Furniture, Folk Art, Silver, Porcelain, Prints and Carpets, January 20-21, 2012, sale 8823, lot 177. The Lyman Allyn Museum example was published in Malcolm A. Norton, “The Cabinet Pedestal Table,” The Magazine Antiques 4, no. 4 (November 1923): 224-25. For the Newport Restoration Foundation table, see Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards, (Tenafly, NJ: MMI Americana Press, 1984), fig. 1.36. The Winterthur example was published in Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans with Wendy A. Cooper and Michael S. Podmaniczky, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods, (Winterthur, DE: Winterthur Museum, 1997), pp. 278-9, no. 147. Philadelphia Museum of Art’s table is published in Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, American Furniture 1650-1840: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), p. 263, no. 269. Parke Bernet Galleries, Important Eighteenth-Century American Furniture, October 25, 1969, lot 84. Sotheby Parke Bernet, Fine Americana September 26, 1981, sale 4692Y, lot 445 which by tradition was purchased from John Goddard in 1768 and descended within the Durfee and Borden families of Newport, Portsmouth, and Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Fall River, Massachusetts.
Item Date: Circa 1760
Measurement: Height: 27 1/2"; Width: 27 7/8"; Depth: 28 1/4"
Item Condition: Excellent, as descended.
Literature: Patricia E. Kane et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016), p. 327n5; Rhode Island Furniture Archive: RIF5348.
SKU 270-210
For More Information, Please Contact David Hillier at 978-597-8084 or email drh@aaawt.com.
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