Lot Essay
One of less than half-a-dozen known examples, this table represents the most highly developed Queen Anne tea table form made in colonial Boston. A design close to this example with pinched cornered gallery, central drop, C-scrolls and cabriole legs with pad feet was drawn in the 1760s by cabinetmaker John Linnell and evidently copied by craftsmen in Boston eager to produce furniture in the most stylish London fashion, see illustration (A Miscellaneous Collection of Designs (London, 1800). The fine state of preservation and rare embellishment of carved C-scrolls, occasionally seen on furniture from other coastal centers, are features that place this example in a class with few others. Another table of this form was originally owned by Mary Revere, daughter of Paul Revere (Sack, American Antiques VI (1979), p. 1540-41, P4574); an example that belonged to Reverent Daniel Shute (1722-1802), of Hingham, Massachusetts, is illustrated in Greenlaw, New England Furniture at Williamsburg (Williamsburg, 1974), no. 129; a table that descended in the Shoemaker and Williams family of Pennsylvania sold at Sotheby's, December 8, 1984, lot 832; see also Levy, An American Tea Party, Exhibition catalogue, 1988, no. 14 and also illustrated in American Art from American Collections (New York, 1963), no. 80.
An essential component of a property appointed parlor for well-to-do Bostonians, tea tables were the center of social etiquette and rituals. Available in England and the colonies in the mid-seventeenth century after the founding of the East India Trading Company, tea was a precious commodity served sparingly in diminutive teapots and cups. By the mid-eighteenth century tea was more plentiful, the price was more reasonable and it was therefore available on a much broader scale. According to etiquette, tea was usually served twice a day. On a visit to Boston in 1781, Baron Cromot du Bourg noted that People drink a 'a great deal of tea in the morning [and] about five o'clock they take more tea, some wine, Madeira [and] punch.' (Roth, "Tea Drinking in the18tgh Century America," (Washington: Smithsonian, n.d.).
Designed with a galleried edge intended to contain the equipment necessary for serving tea, tables were often cluttered with an array of objects such as those listed in a 1735 inventory of a Boston merchant (see Jobe and Kaye, New England Furniture (Boston, 1984), p. 286):
9 Cups & Saucers 1 Tea Pott &
Stand 1 Slop Dish & Plate 1 Saucer 1 Milk Pott & 1
Sugar Pott & 1 Boat all of China
To serve tea properly, one required the basic elements listed above, as well as a hot water kettle with burner often kept on a nearby stand and other small items such as strainers and spoons. The need for certain equipage according to ritual formed a binding relationship between consumerism and etiquette encouraged by the rapid spread of changing fashions. The most elegant and expensive tea sets were of silver or imported chinese porcelain. Not until the eighteenth century did tea services match in form or material and even then most people could not afford the more expensive porcelain or silver and used instead pewter or delft earthenware containers, the latter which did not hold up well to hot water over extended use. With the introduction of Josiah Wedgwood's utilitarian and fashionable creamware in the 1760s there was a tremendous boost in tea consumption which was paralleled by an increase in the production of tea tables.
Given the ties to the orient for tea consumption and wares, it follows that the design inspiration of western tea tables was also based on forms from the east. The rectangular tops, cyma skirts and cabriole legs were features copied from tables made in China since the fifteenth century that were transferred to England in the seventeenth century and brought into fashion during the Queen Anne period in the colonies (see Kirk, American Furniture in the British Tradition (New York, 1982), pp. 325-333 for examples). Also produced with round or shaped tops on tripod bases, the most popular New England form was the "square," or rectangular top tea table with fixed legs.
Nearly identical examples without C-scrolls include a table now in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms belonged to the John Hooper family of Marblehead, Massachusetts (Sack, "The Furniture," The Magazine Antiques (July 1987):168); an example that descended in the Bradlee-Crowninshield family of Salem (see Sack, American Antiques IV (1974), p. 975, P3757); and a table originally owned by Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1836) of Boston (Paul Revere's Boston (MFA, Boston, 1975), no. 122).
An essential component of a property appointed parlor for well-to-do Bostonians, tea tables were the center of social etiquette and rituals. Available in England and the colonies in the mid-seventeenth century after the founding of the East India Trading Company, tea was a precious commodity served sparingly in diminutive teapots and cups. By the mid-eighteenth century tea was more plentiful, the price was more reasonable and it was therefore available on a much broader scale. According to etiquette, tea was usually served twice a day. On a visit to Boston in 1781, Baron Cromot du Bourg noted that People drink a 'a great deal of tea in the morning [and] about five o'clock they take more tea, some wine, Madeira [and] punch.' (Roth, "Tea Drinking in the18tgh Century America," (Washington: Smithsonian, n.d.).
Designed with a galleried edge intended to contain the equipment necessary for serving tea, tables were often cluttered with an array of objects such as those listed in a 1735 inventory of a Boston merchant (see Jobe and Kaye, New England Furniture (Boston, 1984), p. 286):
9 Cups & Saucers 1 Tea Pott &
Stand 1 Slop Dish & Plate 1 Saucer 1 Milk Pott & 1
Sugar Pott & 1 Boat all of China
To serve tea properly, one required the basic elements listed above, as well as a hot water kettle with burner often kept on a nearby stand and other small items such as strainers and spoons. The need for certain equipage according to ritual formed a binding relationship between consumerism and etiquette encouraged by the rapid spread of changing fashions. The most elegant and expensive tea sets were of silver or imported chinese porcelain. Not until the eighteenth century did tea services match in form or material and even then most people could not afford the more expensive porcelain or silver and used instead pewter or delft earthenware containers, the latter which did not hold up well to hot water over extended use. With the introduction of Josiah Wedgwood's utilitarian and fashionable creamware in the 1760s there was a tremendous boost in tea consumption which was paralleled by an increase in the production of tea tables.
Given the ties to the orient for tea consumption and wares, it follows that the design inspiration of western tea tables was also based on forms from the east. The rectangular tops, cyma skirts and cabriole legs were features copied from tables made in China since the fifteenth century that were transferred to England in the seventeenth century and brought into fashion during the Queen Anne period in the colonies (see Kirk, American Furniture in the British Tradition (New York, 1982), pp. 325-333 for examples). Also produced with round or shaped tops on tripod bases, the most popular New England form was the "square," or rectangular top tea table with fixed legs.
Nearly identical examples without C-scrolls include a table now in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms belonged to the John Hooper family of Marblehead, Massachusetts (Sack, "The Furniture," The Magazine Antiques (July 1987):168); an example that descended in the Bradlee-Crowninshield family of Salem (see Sack, American Antiques IV (1974), p. 975, P3757); and a table originally owned by Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1836) of Boston (Paul Revere's Boston (MFA, Boston, 1975), no. 122).