Lot Essay
With its early cotter-pin brasses and butt-hinges, this table may be the earliest known Boston card table with cabriole legs. The table offered here is extremely similar to a table descended from the American Revolutionary Josiah Merriam (1726-1809) of Concord, illustrated in Skinner, Inc., October 29, 1995, lot 140. Of similar design, overall proportions, and details of craftsmanship, the two may be from the same workshop. This table, with its earlier hardware, appears to pre-date the Meriam example, which features the more typical knife-action hinges found on card tables.
The corner turrets over frontal cabriole legs and turned pad feet on this table relate it to a small group of tables made between 1730 and 1760 in Boston. Three of these known tables have checkered stringing and concertina-action mechanisms. Two of the three were originally purchased by the well-known Boston merchant Peter Faneuil (1700-1742); one is in the Bayou Bend Collection and is illustrated in Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, 1975), pp.31, fig.57, the other is illustrated in Christie's, January 21-22, 1994, lot 279. A fourth related card table with checkered inlay and swing-leg construction, is in the collection of The Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, Massachusetts and is illustrated in Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (Boston, 1975), pp.83, fig.95.
The corner turrets over frontal cabriole legs and turned pad feet on this table relate it to a small group of tables made between 1730 and 1760 in Boston. Three of these known tables have checkered stringing and concertina-action mechanisms. Two of the three were originally purchased by the well-known Boston merchant Peter Faneuil (1700-1742); one is in the Bayou Bend Collection and is illustrated in Bayou Bend: American Furniture, Paintings and Silver from the Bayou Bend Collection (Houston, 1975), pp.31, fig.57, the other is illustrated in Christie's, January 21-22, 1994, lot 279. A fourth related card table with checkered inlay and swing-leg construction, is in the collection of The Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, Massachusetts and is illustrated in Paul Revere's Boston: 1735-1818 (Boston, 1975), pp.83, fig.95.