拍品专文
The form illustrated here belongs to a group of seven tables, all originating in New York City and almost certainly made by a French cabinetmaker like Charles Baudouine or Alexander Roux. The six related tables include one at The High Museum, Atlanta; one at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; two in private collections, and one at Andalusia. A unique round wood-topped example with radiating veneer is also in a private collection. Of these, the table illustrated here, one of the private collection tables and the Andalusia marble-topped table retain their original thin tracery cages suspended inside the columns. The tables vary dramatically in the quality and type of carving, as well as in the applied ornaments of the freize. The Andalusia example is the only one with small turrets cut on the angles of the marble top.
These tables have sometimes been associated with the architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892) on the basis of Figure 179 of A. J. Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), also illustrated here, which depicts the Gothic Revival drawing room of the villa "Kenwood," a country house near Albany designed by Davis for Joel Rathbone. The engraved view shows a hexagonal center table with three clustered columns, a bracketed freize, an internally suspended tracery cage, and a simplified lobed pedestal or base. In addition, the Andalusia example cited above came from the Davis-designed villa "Belmead," built for Philip St. George Cocke in Powhatan County, Virginia in 1845. A well-known parlour suite from Belmead, now broken up among many museum and private collections, is attributed to Davis. Nevertheless, the Belmead center table and the parlour suite clearly are by different shops, and the strong resemblance between the entire group of center tables and plain Parisian furniture in the refined Charles X style suggests that one or more of the New York shops run by French cabinetmakers were responsible for the tables.
These are among the most refined of the American Gothic Revival furniture forms and are to be distinguished from cruder Anglophile furniture made in New York City and Boston, as well as from the Regency- and Biedermeier- inspired Gothic Revival furniture characteristic of Philadelphia.
Christie's wishes to thank Robert F. Trent and Harry Mack Truax II for their assistance with this entry.
These tables have sometimes been associated with the architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892) on the basis of Figure 179 of A. J. Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), also illustrated here, which depicts the Gothic Revival drawing room of the villa "Kenwood," a country house near Albany designed by Davis for Joel Rathbone. The engraved view shows a hexagonal center table with three clustered columns, a bracketed freize, an internally suspended tracery cage, and a simplified lobed pedestal or base. In addition, the Andalusia example cited above came from the Davis-designed villa "Belmead," built for Philip St. George Cocke in Powhatan County, Virginia in 1845. A well-known parlour suite from Belmead, now broken up among many museum and private collections, is attributed to Davis. Nevertheless, the Belmead center table and the parlour suite clearly are by different shops, and the strong resemblance between the entire group of center tables and plain Parisian furniture in the refined Charles X style suggests that one or more of the New York shops run by French cabinetmakers were responsible for the tables.
These are among the most refined of the American Gothic Revival furniture forms and are to be distinguished from cruder Anglophile furniture made in New York City and Boston, as well as from the Regency- and Biedermeier- inspired Gothic Revival furniture characteristic of Philadelphia.
Christie's wishes to thank Robert F. Trent and Harry Mack Truax II for their assistance with this entry.