This hairy-paw foot tilt-top tea table is presently the only known American example of its form to survive from eighteenth-century Philadelphia. Numerous examples of other hairy-paw foot furniture from that city exist, with a distinct group of these ornate furnishings emerging as products most likely of the same shop of master carvers. An important bill of sale from Thomas Affleck (1740-1795) suggests at least one possible origin for the tilt-top tea table illustrated here.

While many design elements of this group of furniture reflect the standard vocabulary of the eighteenth century rococo, particular characteristics stand out. Among table forms, in addition to their deeply carved hairy-paw feet, a precisely planned and executed alternating ribbon-and-flower carving, all laid out on an astragal-molded quarter-round surface distinguishes this group. Enclosing and defining the top of the table illustrated here, this edge is also on a serpentine-front card table owned by John Cadwalader and included in a 1772 portrait of Cadwalader and his wife by Charles Willson Peale. Similar molding also exists on two massive pier tables attributed to Thomas Affleck, the first previously owned by Effingham Morris and illustrated in Horner, pl. 264, and the second illustrated in Sotheby's New York, Property from the Estate of the Late Helen Janssen Wetzel, vol. II, October 1980, lot 2129. Other related forms which feature similar carving include the torus molding of the Cadwalader pole screens and the Deshler-Morris tea table illustrated in Sotheby's New York, January 28, 29 & 31, 1994, lot 1295. The Hallam Keep tilt-top tea table, illustrated in the Girl Scout Loan Catalogue, pl. 612, is also related to the example illustrated here in its distinctive astragal-arched motif punctuating the interstitial space between each carved cabriole leg.

The larger record of Philadelphia hairy-paw foot furniture whose distinctive tool work suggests a consistent group of carvers is equally impressive. Objects from this group include two hairy paw foot side chairs in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one with a Cadwalader provenance, and each illustrated in Hecksher, American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museun of Art, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York, 1985), p. 105, figs. 58 and 59; a hairy-paw sofa owned by Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, exhibited at the Deshler-Morris House and illustrated in Horner, pl. 99; a pair of card tables attributed to Thomas Affleck or Benjamin Randolph and illustrated Sotheby's New York, May 10 & 11, 1974, lot 446; the hairy-paw foot card table exhibited in the Stamper-Blackwell Parlour, Winterthur Museum; as well as the primary and secondary suites of furniture made for John Cadwalader by Thomas Affleck whose individual parts are in several museum and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Winterthur, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Colonial Williamsburg and Stratford Hall Plantation, but which are illustrated and considered as a whole in Anderson, Landrey and Zimmerman, Cadwalader Study (Winterthur, DE: The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1995).

Among the largest and best known groups of Philadelphia hairy-paw furniture commissioned in the eighteenth century, the suite of furniture made by Thomas Affleck for John Cadwalader may provide some insight into the origin of this tea table. In his itemized list of household work and furniture made for Cadwalader between October 13, 1770 and January 14, 1771, Affleck noted on January 10, "To a mahogany tea table...L4, 10,-" and finally, "To Mr. Reynolds Bill for carving the above...L37 To Barnard and Jugies (sic) Ditto for Ditto...L24, 4..." This total cost of L61, 4 for carving would have been in addition to Affleck's bill of L119, 8 for the tea table, as well as two mahogany desks, three mahogany sofas, one mahogany easy chair, two card tables, a breakfast table, a night table, three firescreens and a harpsichord frame. Assuming that each of these mahogany items was carved in an equally rigorous fashion, the pro-rated cost of additional carving over fifteen items suggests that this work at least doubled the cost of the tea table. Affleck's bill is additionally important in that it shows that in the extremely brief period of three months, Cadwalader's household was outfitted with a dozen new and costly items of highstyle furniture from one of the most accomplished London-trained Philadelphia craftsmen. In it's identification of James Reynolds, Nicholas Bernard and Martin Jugiez, the Affleck bill also alludes to the complex and interrelated economy of Philadelphia's artisan workshops. Other surviving bills from Cadwalader's Second Street mansion read as a virtual directory of Philadelphia's most accomplished, prominent and successful artists and craftsmen. Charles Willson Peale, Philip Syng, Daniel King, Benjamin Randolph, Thomas Affleck, Plunkett Fleeson, William Savery, Hercules Courtenay, John Elliot, James Reynolds and Bernard and Jugiez represent a few of the artist-craftsmen patronized by Cadwalader: John Cadwalader sought and could afford the best Philadelphia had to offer.

The identification of three carvers on Thomas Affleck's 1771 bill to John Cadwalader attests again to the speed with which this order was executed and to the larger human web behind it. Nicholas Bernard (working circa 1762-1783) and Martin Jugiez (working circa 1762-d. 1815) first advertised themselves in the Pennsylvania Gazette on November 25, 1762 as, "BERNARD and JUGIEZ Carvers and Gilders, at their Looking Glass Sotire, in Walnut Street,... A Compleat Assortment..in the newest Taste, Picture Frames, Sconces, Chimney Pieces, Ornaments for Ceilings, Pictures Framed and Glazed, a neat Harpsichord, N.B. All sort of Carving in Wood or Stone and Gilding done in the neatest Manner." Likewise, on September 4, 1766, James Reynolds (c. 1736-1794) advertised in the same publication that he,"...UNDERTAKES to execute in all the various Branches of Carving and Gilding in the newest, neatest and genteelest Taste, such as Capitals, Mouldings and other House Work, Chair and Cabinet Ditto, Glass and Picture Frames, Slab and Table Ditto,..." While both carving firms maintained their own distinct shops, their presence on Affleck's bill demonstrates not only the practice of jobbing out specialty work from cabinetmaker to carver, but also that this order was so sizable and needed so quickly that it had to be sent to two separate firms. While both carving firms' names appear again in separate bills to Cadwalader from about the same period, Bernard and Jugiez's names also appear on bills from Benjamin Randolph (1721-1791) for whom the two worked in 1771, and who also furnished Cadwalader with other significant orders of ornate mahogany furniture. Randolph's bills of sale for these items do not enumerate the type of work done for Cadwalader beyond L94 for unspecified furniture, with the remaining L158 for carving. Other than Affleck's bill, specific work identified by individual artisan's and the probate inventory taken of Cadwalader's house in 1786, the appearance of Cadwalader's house in its era can only be speculative. The 1786 probate inventory of the house lists a variety of furniture similar in description to items on bills received by Cadwalader from Affleck, Reynolds, and Philadelphia upholster Plunket Fleeson. In the front room of the third floor is listed, "1 large mahogany bureau table 1 d chest of drawers 1 d round tea table 2 walnut dressing tables with drawers 2 old chairs white frame looking glass 8 prints fire screen 1 mahogany looking glass 6 d chairs." The tea table listed in this room is the only tea table listed in Cadwalader's household.

The sumptuous impression created by the fully assembled suite of furniture made for General John Cadwalader has been reunited principally in two sources, the seminal study of the general's home and furnishings by Nicholas Wainwright, Colonial Grandeur in Philadelphia: The House and Furniture of General John Cadwalader (Philadelphia, 1964) and in the more technical analysis of all 25 known Cadwalader pieces by Mark Anderson, Greg Landrey and Phil Zimmerman, Cadwalader Study (Winterthur, 1995). A 1904 sale catalogue from Davis & Harvey, a Philadelphia auction house offered a possible and partial glimpse of the famed Revolutionary War hero's belongings.

Advertised on the frontispiece of the catalogue as, "The Colonial Furniture from the Cadwalader Mansion Embracing the unusual collection of the choicest specimens of Mahogany Colonial Chairs, Sofas, Sideboards, Tables and Old China, formerly owned by General John Cadwalader of Revolutionary fame," Davis & Harvey identified the seller as Dr. Charles E. Cadwalder: the sale took place over two days. While the brief and unillustrated descriptions of the 359 lots presumably represent a combination of Dr. Cadwalader's possessions and Victorian family acquisitions, it is safe to assume that a portion of the sale were items from General Cadwalader's colonial mansion, as the sale title suggested. Typical objects in the sale which could be from the Affleck-Cadwalader suite were items such as lot 67, a set of "Six Elegant Antique Mahogany Dining Room Chairs; carved claw feet, upholstered in leather," which sold for $113. Lot 168, " a Handsome Antique Console Table; profusely carved, scroll legs, Egyptian marble top," sold for $450. One attendant to the 1904 sale pronounced this table to be "Chippendale perfect." This marble-topped masterpiece is presently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was the focal point of that institution's seminal exhibition,American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament(see Bowman and Hecksher, American Rococo, 1750-1775: Elegance in Ornament,New York, 1992, pp.-193, fig. 13). Lot 280, an "Elegant Antique Mahogany Chair" with carved back and scroll legs supported by "ball and claw feet" was the second most expensive object in the auction, selling for $160. Close behind this chair and selling for $150 was lot 235, described as a "Large Antique Mahogany Turnover Centre Table; finely carved column and claw feet; beautiful stave top of San Domingo Mahogany." Although it is impossible to determine if this table is the tea table illustrated here, its presence in the 1904 sale catalogue establishes two important points. First, it documents a plausible moment at which General John Cadwalader's tea table left the family's collection. Second, in the wording of the catalogue's entries, Davis & Harvey perhaps inadvertently identified specific design features of the Cadwalader property. While the majority of Cadwalder's order from Affleck was ultra-high style for it's use of hairy-paw feet, and Davis & Harvey describe the majority of mahogany furniture as with, "carved claw feet," lot 280, the easy chair, was specifically described having "ball and claw feet." This difference suggests that the majority of Dr. Cadwalader's mahogany furniture, like that of his famous ancestor, did not have ball and claw feet, but that the Davis & Harvey description refers to an animal motif.

Although it is impossible to determine conclusively that this tea table is the same item that appears on Affleck's bill to John Cadwalader, certainly this form was made by one of the best, most highly skilled artists of Philadelphia's golden era. As the second wealthiest and most prosperous city in the British Empire, Philadelphia in the mid-eighteenth century was a magnet for guild-trained virtuosi such as those carvers whose names appear in Cadwalader's bills. A comparison of the lot illustrated here with documented forms from the general's house shows a tea table whose carving, design and proportions easily compliment and blend with the Cadwalader group.