AMERICAN, POSSIBLY NEW YORK, 1720-1740

Retaining an old if not original surface to its base, this chair-table is a well-preserved survival of a rare form. The base is finished with a red and black stain, a two-tone treatment that is also seen on a chair table that descended in the Abercrombie family of Pelham and Deerfield, Massachusetts (see Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (New York, 1976), p. 114, fig. 233-235). Subject to greater wear, the top displays a later red finish but its originality to the base is evident by the original maple pins securing the top to the arms. Similar pins also join the cleats to the underside of the top. As determined by microscopic analysis, the chair-table is made of white pine, confirming its American origin. The flat stretchers suggest the influence of Continental European designs and point to New York as a likely place of production.
For related examples see Robert Bishop, Centuries and Styles of the American Chair: 1640-1970 (New York, 1972), pp. 34-35; Patricia E. Kane, Furniture of the New Haven Colony: The Seventeenth-Century Style (New Haven, 1973), pp. 64-65, fig. XXVIII; Patricia E. Kane, 300 Years of American Seating Furniture: Chairs and Beds from the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, 1976), pp. 33-34, fig. 7; Robert Blair St. George, The Wrought Covenant: Source Material for the Study of Craftsmen and Community in Southeastern New England, 1620-1700 (Brockton, Massachusetts, 1979), p. 30, figs. 5-6; Dean F. Failey, Long Island Is My Nation: The Decorative Arts and Craftsmen 1640-1830 (Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1998), p. 22 fig. 15.