Lot Essay
Recently arrived in Charleston in 1739, Eliza Lucas commented on her new surroundings, "...the people live very Gentile and very much in the English taste."1 In fact, while England was the dominant culture of the South Carolina Low Country at this time, prevailing demographics of the area show a rich and international mixture of ethnic influences. With France expanding its foothold to the west along the Mississippi and Spain controlling Florida to the south, South Carolina itself was also a combination of English, French Hugeunot and, toward mid-century, German nationals. Accordingly, the dressing table illustrated here, made in Charleston circa 1740 and with a history of ownership on a South Carolina family, is a distinctly and typically Low Country expression of a formal English design.
Referred to at the time as "neat and plain," the appearance of this dressing table embodies its time and place of manufacture. While most wealthy consumers in Englands' American colonies preferred highstyle furniture in walnut, Charlestonians, for whom mahogany was more easily available from the West Indies, chose that wood for their grander household furnishings. Likewise, the diminutive, tight design of this table, particulary its abrupt, unembellished cylindrical legs with flaring ankle and minimal undercutting behind the knee and foot, closely relates the table to English forms made at about the same time. In American Furniture and the British Tradition (New York: 1982), John Kirk identifies this distinctively stiff leg as appearing in English furniture as early as 17202, thus suggesting a relatively slow change in design preferences, or a high degree of aesthetic conservatism within America's southern colonial patrons. This conservatism, in conjunction with the full assimilation of Huguenots design into Low Country culture, offers the possibility that this table may be also aesthetically related to earlier Dutch forms, both through contemporary English designs, which were equally influenced by that culture, as well as by local preferences. Accordingly, the stiff trumpet-legged marquetry inlaid table illustrated on p. 29, fig. 25 of Baarsen, et al Courts and Colonies: The William and Mary Style in Holland England and America (New York: 1988) may be as much an antecedent as highstyle formal English forms. While a small group of Charleston tables have been attributed to one as yet unidentified shop, it is presently unknown if this table may be assigned to that group as well3.
A similar dressing table is illustrated in Horton et al, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, (Winston-Salem: 1979), p. 40. This same table is illustrated and discussed further in Bivins, The Regional Arts of the Early South (MESDA, Winston-Salem: 1991), p.79, fig. 12. A similar Charleston dressing table with straight skirt, abrupt cylinder legs and undercut feet is illustrated and discussed in Burton, Charleston Furniture, 1700-1825 (Columbia: 1955), fig. 93; likewise a walnut dining table with similarly stiff legs and undercut feet is illustrated in Burton, fig. 82. The preference for stiff, Anglo-centric design is further seen in a related card table with similar legs attributed to the Anthony Hay Shop, Williamsburg, Virginia, made 1745, illustrated and discussed in Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia, 1710-1790 (Williamsburg: 1993), p. 69, fig. 44.
This table was included in the MESDA decorative arts survey.
1 Jessie Poesch, The Art of the Old South: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture & the Products of Craftsmen, 1560-1860. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1983, p. 47.
2 John Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 322.
3 John Bivins, The Regional Arts of the Early South, Winston-Salem: MESDA, 1991, p. 79.
Referred to at the time as "neat and plain," the appearance of this dressing table embodies its time and place of manufacture. While most wealthy consumers in Englands' American colonies preferred highstyle furniture in walnut, Charlestonians, for whom mahogany was more easily available from the West Indies, chose that wood for their grander household furnishings. Likewise, the diminutive, tight design of this table, particulary its abrupt, unembellished cylindrical legs with flaring ankle and minimal undercutting behind the knee and foot, closely relates the table to English forms made at about the same time. In American Furniture and the British Tradition (New York: 1982), John Kirk identifies this distinctively stiff leg as appearing in English furniture as early as 17202, thus suggesting a relatively slow change in design preferences, or a high degree of aesthetic conservatism within America's southern colonial patrons. This conservatism, in conjunction with the full assimilation of Huguenots design into Low Country culture, offers the possibility that this table may be also aesthetically related to earlier Dutch forms, both through contemporary English designs, which were equally influenced by that culture, as well as by local preferences. Accordingly, the stiff trumpet-legged marquetry inlaid table illustrated on p. 29, fig. 25 of Baarsen, et al Courts and Colonies: The William and Mary Style in Holland England and America (New York: 1988) may be as much an antecedent as highstyle formal English forms. While a small group of Charleston tables have been attributed to one as yet unidentified shop, it is presently unknown if this table may be assigned to that group as well3.
A similar dressing table is illustrated in Horton et al, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, (Winston-Salem: 1979), p. 40. This same table is illustrated and discussed further in Bivins, The Regional Arts of the Early South (MESDA, Winston-Salem: 1991), p.79, fig. 12. A similar Charleston dressing table with straight skirt, abrupt cylinder legs and undercut feet is illustrated and discussed in Burton, Charleston Furniture, 1700-1825 (Columbia: 1955), fig. 93; likewise a walnut dining table with similarly stiff legs and undercut feet is illustrated in Burton, fig. 82. The preference for stiff, Anglo-centric design is further seen in a related card table with similar legs attributed to the Anthony Hay Shop, Williamsburg, Virginia, made 1745, illustrated and discussed in Gusler, Furniture of Williamsburg and Eastern Virginia, 1710-1790 (Williamsburg: 1993), p. 69, fig. 44.
This table was included in the MESDA decorative arts survey.
1 Jessie Poesch, The Art of the Old South: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture & the Products of Craftsmen, 1560-1860. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1983, p. 47.
2 John Kirk, American Furniture and the British Tradition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 322.
3 John Bivins, The Regional Arts of the Early South, Winston-Salem: MESDA, 1991, p. 79.