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Lot Essay
This pair of dining tables was made for Vincent Emerson Loockerman (1722-1785), a prominent figure in Dover, Delaware and a significant patron of Philadelphia craftsmen. These tables appear in the detailed estate inventory taken after his death in 1785. Valued at £7 10s, the tables furnished the parlor and are described as “2 Large Mahogany Dining Tables” (see fig. 1). The tables descended to the late twentieth century along with several other Loockerman-owned pieces that can also be linked to listings in the inventory. These comprise a chest-on-chest, a pembroke table, a dressing table, an armchair signed “B. Randolph,” and a desk-and-bookcase (see Sotheby’s, New York, The Contents of Langdon, 2 February 1985, lots 1139, 1145, 1150, 1156, 1163; for the chest-on-chest, see also Christie’s, New York, 16 January 1999, lot 614). Additional evidence for Loockerman’s patronage includes references in the accounts of Benjamin Randolph and a surviving pair of andirons that can have been attributed to Daniel King (Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art (Philadelphia, 1976), p. 127; Israel Sack, Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack, Inc., vol. 3, p. 626, P1414).
A successful merchant and landowner, Vincent Loockerman was a leading civic figure and an ardent patriot during the Revolution. He was the great grandson of Govert Loockerman who emigrated from Holland and settled in New York in 1633. His son, Jacob, moved to Delaware and it was Jacob’s son and Vincent’s father, Nicholas, who built the Loockerman Manor house that originally housed these tables and still stands in Dover. Between 1752 and until the year of his death, Vincent was a member of the General Assembly of the three lower counties of Delaware, the Committee of Correspondence and the Governor’s Council of Delaware State. His numerous contributions to his local community include lending £750 on 16 December 1777 to purchase clothing for the Delaware Regiment at Valley Forge and two years later donating the land for the first Methodist Episcopal Church in Dover.
This pair of tables was inherited by Vincent’s daughter, Elizabeth (Loockerman) Bradford (1781-1851), and subsequently by her son, Thomas B. Bradford (d. 1871), a Presbyterian minister who is remembered for his extensive development of Dover. He built numerous houses and cottages on State and Bradford Streets and in 1852, he laid out “Bradford City,” the land contiguous to the old town directly north of Loockerman Street (John Thomas Scharf, History of Delaware 1609-1888, (Philadelphia, 1888), p. 1049; Cannon, “The Loockermans Manor House Near Dover,” Delaware History, vol. III (Wilmington, 1948-1949), pp. 27-104). The tables, along with the other items discussed above, descended in the Bradford family until the twentieth century, when they was bought from the widow of Gene Bradford by the owner of "Langdon," and subsequently sold at auction in 1985.
A successful merchant and landowner, Vincent Loockerman was a leading civic figure and an ardent patriot during the Revolution. He was the great grandson of Govert Loockerman who emigrated from Holland and settled in New York in 1633. His son, Jacob, moved to Delaware and it was Jacob’s son and Vincent’s father, Nicholas, who built the Loockerman Manor house that originally housed these tables and still stands in Dover. Between 1752 and until the year of his death, Vincent was a member of the General Assembly of the three lower counties of Delaware, the Committee of Correspondence and the Governor’s Council of Delaware State. His numerous contributions to his local community include lending £750 on 16 December 1777 to purchase clothing for the Delaware Regiment at Valley Forge and two years later donating the land for the first Methodist Episcopal Church in Dover.
This pair of tables was inherited by Vincent’s daughter, Elizabeth (Loockerman) Bradford (1781-1851), and subsequently by her son, Thomas B. Bradford (d. 1871), a Presbyterian minister who is remembered for his extensive development of Dover. He built numerous houses and cottages on State and Bradford Streets and in 1852, he laid out “Bradford City,” the land contiguous to the old town directly north of Loockerman Street (John Thomas Scharf, History of Delaware 1609-1888, (Philadelphia, 1888), p. 1049; Cannon, “The Loockermans Manor House Near Dover,” Delaware History, vol. III (Wilmington, 1948-1949), pp. 27-104). The tables, along with the other items discussed above, descended in the Bradford family until the twentieth century, when they was bought from the widow of Gene Bradford by the owner of "Langdon," and subsequently sold at auction in 1985.