Lot Essay
Displaying a ball-turned frame and much of the original leaf painting on its front panels, this chamber table is an even rarer survival of a rare form. While other small groups were made in Salem and the Hingham area, this chamber table is one of approximately fifteen thought to have been made in Boston. Surviving in various states of preservation, the Boston group features lift-top lids attached with pintle hinges, two front panels with "arched" moldings, channel molded front rails and muntins, and drawer fronts with applied moldings placed to simulate two short drawers. From available evidence, their construction includes the use of dovetailed, side-hung drawers and single-board back panels tenoned twice on each side to the rear stiles. Their attribution to Boston is based upon the presence of dovetails, a new innovation for the time period and the relatively large number of surviving examples (as compared with the Salem and Hingham groups), both of which suggest the practices of an urban shop. Furthermore, two in the group descended in the Hancock and Hubbard families of Boston (Christopher P. Monkhouse and Thomas S. Michie, American Furniture in Pendleton House (Providence, 1986), pp. 75-76; William N. Hosley and Karen Blanchfield, entry, American Art from the Currier Gallery of Art (1995), p. 86); Frances Gruber Safford, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Early Colonial Period (New Haven, 2007), pp. 254, 256, fn. 3).
Most examples in the Boston group have baluster-turned frames and in addition to the chamber table offered here, only four others, three of which are in museum collections, are known with the ball-turned legs and stretchers (fig. 1; see below for list). The ball turnings are stylistically earlier and resemble those seen on "Cromwellian" chairs, which were first made in Boston in about 1660. As noted by Frances Gruber Safford, the turnings on these chamber tables are more compressed than those on the chairs and lack the finesse of a ring turned element at the junctures of the blocks. Based on the evidence from this sub-group of Boston chamber tables, Safford attributes a square table with related turnings to the Boston area (Safford, pp. 126-127, cat. 48).
Although the chamber table offered here has undergone losses and restoration to its lid and drawer façade, it retains much of the leafy decoration painted on the front panels, making it one of the more important survivals from this group. Others that display significant passages of original paintwork, as well as graining to the stiles and side panels, include the example in fig. 1 and those in the collections of Pendleton House, Rhode Island School of Design and the Brooklyn Museum; most, however, retain only traces of the original decoration or have had the surfaces stripped (Robert F. Trent, entry, Christie's, New York, 28 September 2011, lot 1; Monkhouse and Michie, pp. 75-76, cat. 21; Dean A. Fales, Jr., American Painted Furniture 1660-1880 (New York, 1972), p. 54, fig. 72). Similarly executed leafy sprigs are seen on the painted panels on a group of chests, also surmised to have been made in the Boston area. Like these chamber tables, the chests have "arched" panelling but their side-hung drawers are nailed rather than dovetailed (David B. Warren et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Princeton, 1998), p. 15; Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston, 1984), pp. 120-123, cat. 7).
A particular favorite among early collectors of American furniture, the late seventeenth-century chamber table form was lauded by Wallace Nutting for its beauty, small size and mysterious function. Also variously termed "chests-on-frame," "chests-on-stand", "dressing stands" today, these forms are thought to be those identified by Benno M. Forman as the "chamber tables" in period inventories, thus indicating their usage for the storage of dressing articles and a pre-cursor to the dressing table form (Benno M. Forman, "Furniture for Dressing in Early America, 1650-1730: Forms, Nomenclature, and Use," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 22, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1987), pp. 109-148, as cited in Trent, op. cit.; Monkhouse and Michie, p. 76; Hosley and Blanchfield, p. 86).
As indicated by its publication in Nutting's volumes, the example offered here was collected by Bernard Arthur Behrend (1875-1932), a prominent engineer who was born in Switzerland and removed to Pennsylvania and Ohio, before settling in Boston, then Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. Based on surviving examples from his collection and his re-creation of a seventeenth-century home, Behrend favored America's "pilgrim century" style. Interestingly, he also owned the chamber table in fig. 1 as well as a Hingham-area example now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("Biographical Note," Bernard A. Behrend Collection, Mss.0240, Clemson University Libraries Special Collections, South Carolina; for views of Behrend's home, see "Antiques in Domestic Settings: An Early Colonial Home in Massachusetts," The Magazine Antiques (November 1941), pp. 288-290 and reprinted in Robert F. Trent, ed., Pilgrim Century Furniture: An Historical Survey (New York, 1976), pp. 22-24; for examples from his collection purchased by Mrs. J. Insley Blair and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Safford, cats. 30, 50, 106). This table was subsequently published by Nutting in 1928 as owned by "Mrs. F. G. Patterson, Boston." She has not been unidentified, but is also listed by Nutting as a previous owner of the chamber table now at the Brooklyn Museum; unless Nutting conflated the citations, the chamber table offered here was subsequently owned by Mrs. Patterson before entering the collection of Cecile (Seligman) Lehman Mayer.
The four other chamber tables with ball-turned frames comprise the example in fig. 1 and examples in the collections of Bayou Bend, The Henry Ford Museum and the Currier Gallery of Art (Warren et al., pp. 14-15, F27; Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (1913), no. 236; Hosley and Blanchfield, pp. 86-87, cat. 33).
Christie's would like to thank Robert F. Trent for his assistance with this essay.
Most examples in the Boston group have baluster-turned frames and in addition to the chamber table offered here, only four others, three of which are in museum collections, are known with the ball-turned legs and stretchers (fig. 1; see below for list). The ball turnings are stylistically earlier and resemble those seen on "Cromwellian" chairs, which were first made in Boston in about 1660. As noted by Frances Gruber Safford, the turnings on these chamber tables are more compressed than those on the chairs and lack the finesse of a ring turned element at the junctures of the blocks. Based on the evidence from this sub-group of Boston chamber tables, Safford attributes a square table with related turnings to the Boston area (Safford, pp. 126-127, cat. 48).
Although the chamber table offered here has undergone losses and restoration to its lid and drawer façade, it retains much of the leafy decoration painted on the front panels, making it one of the more important survivals from this group. Others that display significant passages of original paintwork, as well as graining to the stiles and side panels, include the example in fig. 1 and those in the collections of Pendleton House, Rhode Island School of Design and the Brooklyn Museum; most, however, retain only traces of the original decoration or have had the surfaces stripped (Robert F. Trent, entry, Christie's, New York, 28 September 2011, lot 1; Monkhouse and Michie, pp. 75-76, cat. 21; Dean A. Fales, Jr., American Painted Furniture 1660-1880 (New York, 1972), p. 54, fig. 72). Similarly executed leafy sprigs are seen on the painted panels on a group of chests, also surmised to have been made in the Boston area. Like these chamber tables, the chests have "arched" panelling but their side-hung drawers are nailed rather than dovetailed (David B. Warren et al., American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection (Princeton, 1998), p. 15; Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston, 1984), pp. 120-123, cat. 7).
A particular favorite among early collectors of American furniture, the late seventeenth-century chamber table form was lauded by Wallace Nutting for its beauty, small size and mysterious function. Also variously termed "chests-on-frame," "chests-on-stand", "dressing stands" today, these forms are thought to be those identified by Benno M. Forman as the "chamber tables" in period inventories, thus indicating their usage for the storage of dressing articles and a pre-cursor to the dressing table form (Benno M. Forman, "Furniture for Dressing in Early America, 1650-1730: Forms, Nomenclature, and Use," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 22, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Autumn 1987), pp. 109-148, as cited in Trent, op. cit.; Monkhouse and Michie, p. 76; Hosley and Blanchfield, p. 86).
As indicated by its publication in Nutting's volumes, the example offered here was collected by Bernard Arthur Behrend (1875-1932), a prominent engineer who was born in Switzerland and removed to Pennsylvania and Ohio, before settling in Boston, then Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. Based on surviving examples from his collection and his re-creation of a seventeenth-century home, Behrend favored America's "pilgrim century" style. Interestingly, he also owned the chamber table in fig. 1 as well as a Hingham-area example now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("Biographical Note," Bernard A. Behrend Collection, Mss.0240, Clemson University Libraries Special Collections, South Carolina; for views of Behrend's home, see "Antiques in Domestic Settings: An Early Colonial Home in Massachusetts," The Magazine Antiques (November 1941), pp. 288-290 and reprinted in Robert F. Trent, ed., Pilgrim Century Furniture: An Historical Survey (New York, 1976), pp. 22-24; for examples from his collection purchased by Mrs. J. Insley Blair and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Safford, cats. 30, 50, 106). This table was subsequently published by Nutting in 1928 as owned by "Mrs. F. G. Patterson, Boston." She has not been unidentified, but is also listed by Nutting as a previous owner of the chamber table now at the Brooklyn Museum; unless Nutting conflated the citations, the chamber table offered here was subsequently owned by Mrs. Patterson before entering the collection of Cecile (Seligman) Lehman Mayer.
The four other chamber tables with ball-turned frames comprise the example in fig. 1 and examples in the collections of Bayou Bend, The Henry Ford Museum and the Currier Gallery of Art (Warren et al., pp. 14-15, F27; Luke Vincent Lockwood, Colonial Furniture in America (1913), no. 236; Hosley and Blanchfield, pp. 86-87, cat. 33).
Christie's would like to thank Robert F. Trent for his assistance with this essay.