Lot Essay
This table, with its tray top, cusped corners, shell-carved knees, tapering cabriole legs, and diminutive sculptured ball and claw feet, reflects the transition from the grace and simplicity of the Queen Anne style to the drama and flamboyance of the Chippendale style. This table employs design characteristics found in both Boston and New York, and delineates the close mercantile relationship between these colonial port cities. Not only was the square tray-top the most popular form for a tea table among Boston patrons and craftsmen, but also the similarities of this example to earlier Boston Queen Anne tray-top forms and the use of white pine as the secondary wood, are Boston features. In comparison, New York tray-top tea tables exhibit a thicker molded edge, highly foliate carved knees, and larger ball and claw feet.
An example of a New York carved tray-top tea table from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchel Taradash is illustrated in Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol.7, p. 2355, fig. P5888. Another example with secondary woods of yellow pine, yellow-poplar, and Atlantic white cedar, is in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State and is illustrated in Conger, et al Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York, 1991)p. 152, fig. 67.
An example of a Queen Anne Boston tray-top tea table was sold in These Rooms, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27 and 28, 1996, lot 1045. Other Boston examples include: one now in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State from the John Hooper family of Marblehead, Massachusetts, illlustrated in Sack, "The Furniture," The Magazine Antiques (July 1987)p. 168; a second descended in the Bradlee-Crowninshield family of Salem illustrated in Sack American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol 4, p. 975, fig. P3757; and a third owned by Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1836) of Boston is illustrated and discussed in Fairbanks, et al., Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (Boston, 1975) p. 96, fig. 122.
An example of a New York carved tray-top tea table from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchel Taradash is illustrated in Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol.7, p. 2355, fig. P5888. Another example with secondary woods of yellow pine, yellow-poplar, and Atlantic white cedar, is in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State and is illustrated in Conger, et al Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York, 1991)p. 152, fig. 67.
An example of a Queen Anne Boston tray-top tea table was sold in These Rooms, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27 and 28, 1996, lot 1045. Other Boston examples include: one now in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State from the John Hooper family of Marblehead, Massachusetts, illlustrated in Sack, "The Furniture," The Magazine Antiques (July 1987)p. 168; a second descended in the Bradlee-Crowninshield family of Salem illustrated in Sack American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, vol 4, p. 975, fig. P3757; and a third owned by Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1836) of Boston is illustrated and discussed in Fairbanks, et al., Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (Boston, 1975) p. 96, fig. 122.