NEW ENGLAND, PROBABLY BOSTON AREA, 1740-1760

Gracefully rendered with uninterrupted curvilinear lines, this marble-top center table illustrates the beauty of the S-curve and is an impressive example of New England furniture in the Queen Anne style. Coined "the line of beauty" by the English artist William Hogarth, the S-curve is the table's dominant decorative motif, providing the outline of the cabriole legs and in a series of repeats, the bold profile of the table's rails. This model, with an applied convex rail and an expensive marble-top, was undoubtedly made to order and as such, each survival bears its own particular design. Closely related tables, also of mahogany with pad feet, have been attributed to Boston and this table, with white pine glue blocks, was most likely made in this style center (see Sotheby's Parke Bernet New York, 2 February 1980, lot 1603; Sotheby's New York, The Americana Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland, 19 January 2002, lot 166; for a related table attributed to New York with cherrywood and ash secondary woods and ball and claw feet, see Joseph Downs, American Furniture: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods in the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (New York, 1952), no. 355). Tray-top tea tables of this period were made in the same manner and an example at the Chipstone Foundation, attributed to Massachusetts or Rhode Island, circa 1740, displays similar construction and features the same treatment at the juncture of the legs and convex rail. On both tables, the rails terminate in a downward curve that abuts the inner curve of the cabriole leg forming a transition with a gentle peak; it is possible that both were made in the same shop, thereby raising the small possibility that this center table was made outside of Boston (see Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1984), pp. 270, cat. 125 and digital database available at www.chipstone.org; for more on Boston marble-top tables of this time period, see Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur (Winterthur, Delaware, 1997), p. 246).