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Lot Essay
An important addition to ongoing scholarship on the work of John Townsend, this Chippendale pembroke table is one of only two such tables bearing the label of late eighteenth-century Newport's most celebrated craftsman. The other labelled table, in the collection of Winterthur Museum, was originally owned by Colonel John Cooke of Middletown, Rhode Island as was a third table attributed to Townsend and now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (see Richards and Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, Winterthur, 1997, cat.125 and Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport, New Jersey, 1984, fig. 1.39). Sharing the same history and seemingly identical form, decoration and construction, these two tables are thought to have been made en suite. A fourth table, in a private collection and illustrated in Carpenter, The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island 1640-1820, Newport, 1954, no.56, lacks a label, but features the same distinctive crosshatching, returns, fluted legs and interior construction of the table offered here and the Cooke tables. It is possible that the table offered here and that in the private collection were also made en suite and as he did with the Cooke tables, Townsend chose to label only one of the two. Missing its cross stretchers, the table offered here undoubtedly had the Chinoiserie "moongate" stretchers seen on the other three.
Other pembroke tables labelled by John Townsend indicate that the cabinetmaker used the same basic form and construction methods, but altered his decorative techniques to suit the pocketbok of his clients or to adapt to changing styles. A table in the collection of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts bears Townsend's label and lacks the ornamental crosshatching around the base of the skirt and features plainer returns, suggesting it was a cheaper option to those discussed above. Later tables illustrate Townsend's accomodation of the Federal style with the substitution of inlaid decoration for the three-dimensional carved work seen on the skirt, returns, legs and stretchers (see Moses, figs. 2.8, 2.12 and 2.13).
Made in the 1780s or the early 1790s, this table exemplifies the accomplishment of Townsend at the height of his career. A self-employed cabinetmaker by 1756, Townsend began to make his most notable contributions to American cabinetmaking with his block-and-shell furniture in the 1760s. After his brief imprisonment during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and subsequent departure to Connecticut, he had returned to Newport by 1782. It was during the next decade when he further perfected his block-and-shell work as well as created this group of pembroke tables (see Christie's New York, Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, June 18, 1998, lot 151).
Other pembroke tables labelled by John Townsend indicate that the cabinetmaker used the same basic form and construction methods, but altered his decorative techniques to suit the pocketbok of his clients or to adapt to changing styles. A table in the collection of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts bears Townsend's label and lacks the ornamental crosshatching around the base of the skirt and features plainer returns, suggesting it was a cheaper option to those discussed above. Later tables illustrate Townsend's accomodation of the Federal style with the substitution of inlaid decoration for the three-dimensional carved work seen on the skirt, returns, legs and stretchers (see Moses, figs. 2.8, 2.12 and 2.13).
Made in the 1780s or the early 1790s, this table exemplifies the accomplishment of Townsend at the height of his career. A self-employed cabinetmaker by 1756, Townsend began to make his most notable contributions to American cabinetmaking with his block-and-shell furniture in the 1760s. After his brief imprisonment during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War and subsequent departure to Connecticut, he had returned to Newport by 1782. It was during the next decade when he further perfected his block-and-shell work as well as created this group of pembroke tables (see Christie's New York, Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, June 18, 1998, lot 151).