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Lot Essay
With its stepped battens running the full diameter of the top, its simple tapering columnar support and non-turning maple block, the design vocabulary of this table is typically Newport. The distinctively small five-toed feet relate this table to a small group of Newport pillar and claw forms associated with John Goddard.
This group is comprised of three tilt-top tables with triangular case-constructed supports, two tables with multiple fluted-column supports, three tables with single column supports and one multi-columned basin stand. Each of these groups share the same characteristic five-toed rat-paw carved feet.
The first type is defined by a triangular plinth on which rests a conforming case punctuated at each point by engaged columns and fronted by a hinged door enclosing a series of small drawers. Of these, one is in the collection of the Lyman Allyn Museum (see Antiques (November 1923), pp.224-225, fig. 1), one is in the collection at Winterthur (see Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Winterthur, 1997), pp.278-279, fig. 147), and the third is illustrated and discussed in Antiques (November 1923), pp.224-225, fig. 3.
The second type employs the same plinth and conforming placement of columns but has no case and is centered by a fourth columnar support. The most important of these was owned by Catherine Goddard Weaver, and is supposed to have been made by her father, John Goddard; it is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is illustrated and discussed in Hipkiss, M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth Century American Arts (Boston, 1941), p. 110. The second of these is illustrated and discussed in Antiques (May 1927), pp. 364-365, fig. 2.
The third type employs the more standard single column supporting the top. In addition to the table illustrated here, an identical table also beaded at the tops of the legs and plowed on the lower sides of the legs above the knees is in the collection of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and was probably made in the same shop. It is illustrated and discussed in Jobe and Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston, 1984), pp. 300-302. A third tilt-top tea table with a columnar support terminating in a sprial-carved urn was made for James Atkinson by John Goddard in the early 1770s. The table and its surviving bill of sale signed by Goddard are illustrated and discussed in Carpenter, Arts and Crafts of Newport (Newport, 1954), fig. 79.
A basin stand in the collection at Winterthur combines design elements of the second and third types and is illustrated and discussed in Richards and Evans, pp. 289-290, fig. 152.
This group is comprised of three tilt-top tables with triangular case-constructed supports, two tables with multiple fluted-column supports, three tables with single column supports and one multi-columned basin stand. Each of these groups share the same characteristic five-toed rat-paw carved feet.
The first type is defined by a triangular plinth on which rests a conforming case punctuated at each point by engaged columns and fronted by a hinged door enclosing a series of small drawers. Of these, one is in the collection of the Lyman Allyn Museum (see Antiques (November 1923), pp.224-225, fig. 1), one is in the collection at Winterthur (see Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (Winterthur, 1997), pp.278-279, fig. 147), and the third is illustrated and discussed in Antiques (November 1923), pp.224-225, fig. 3.
The second type employs the same plinth and conforming placement of columns but has no case and is centered by a fourth columnar support. The most important of these was owned by Catherine Goddard Weaver, and is supposed to have been made by her father, John Goddard; it is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is illustrated and discussed in Hipkiss, M. and M. Karolik Collection of Eighteenth Century American Arts (Boston, 1941), p. 110. The second of these is illustrated and discussed in Antiques (May 1927), pp. 364-365, fig. 2.
The third type employs the more standard single column supporting the top. In addition to the table illustrated here, an identical table also beaded at the tops of the legs and plowed on the lower sides of the legs above the knees is in the collection of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and was probably made in the same shop. It is illustrated and discussed in Jobe and Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston, 1984), pp. 300-302. A third tilt-top tea table with a columnar support terminating in a sprial-carved urn was made for James Atkinson by John Goddard in the early 1770s. The table and its surviving bill of sale signed by Goddard are illustrated and discussed in Carpenter, Arts and Crafts of Newport (Newport, 1954), fig. 79.
A basin stand in the collection at Winterthur combines design elements of the second and third types and is illustrated and discussed in Richards and Evans, pp. 289-290, fig. 152.