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Pembroke table

Object number

RIF654

Maker

Maker, formerly attributed to John Townsend, American, 1732/33–1809
Maker Unknown

Dimensions

Open: 26 1/2 × 35 1/4 × 44 1/2 in. (67.31 × 89.535 × 113.03 cm) Depth closed: 18 1/2 in. (46.99 cm)

Date

1785–1800

Current location

Unknown

Geography

Made in Newport, Rhode Island
(view a map of Rhode Island)

Medium

Mahogany (primary); yellow poplar (drawer sides, bottom, and corner blocks); chestnut (drawer back, center cross brace, vertical blocks, and drawer guide); soft maple (frame sides, sliding supports for top, and cross brace for top); eastern white pine (horizontal glue blocks, drawer runners, and shim on right leaf)

Marks

None

Inscriptions

"T," in chalk, on back brace and underside of top

Provenance

Harry Arons (1891–1967), Ansonia and later Bridgeport, Connecticut, by 1956; sold to John S. Walton, Inc., New York, 1956; sold to Hugh B. Cox (1905–1973) and his wife Ethelyn Ayres Cox (1908–1988), Alexandria, Virginia, 1957; consigned to Christie's, New York, June 16, 1984, lot 412; sold to John Walton, Inc., Griswold and Jewett City, Connecticut; sold to Ann Holzer (1917–1999) and Philip Holzer (1919–2011) , Great Neck, New York, 1984; consigned to Sotheby's, New York, January 20–21, 2012, lot 235

Associated names

Hugh B. Cox
John S. Walton, Inc.
Christie's
Harry Arons
Ann Holzer
Philip Holzer
Sotheby's
John S. Walton, Inc.
Ethelyn Ayres Cox

Construction

The single-board square-edge top is joined to its single-board square-edged leaves by four sets of iron hinges, each leaf thrice-screwed, exhibiting scribe lines and set inward from the legs. The underside of the top has vertical saw marks. The joint between top and leaves is quarter round. The undersides of the leaves bear toothing plane marks. The top is attached by screws through two transverse braces on its underside, which are dovetailed into the long rails, and by chamfered glue blocks. The rails are attached to the legs by mortise and tenon joints, each exhibiting two wood pins. The tops of the legs in the corners of the frame opposite the draweer have rectangular vertical glue blocks. The rail above the drawer has a countersunk nail hole on its molder underside. The lipped, thumb-molded drawer front has finely cut dovetails with half-pins above and below. The drawer bottom is flat, nailed with brads into a rabbet in the drawer front and nailed with brads into the arched-top drawer sides and drawer back above. The opposite rail has a false drawer and drawer pull. Drawer supports and guides are nailed to the long rails with sprigs and brads. The openwork brackets which decorate the juncture of end rails and legs are attached to both with brads. Behind the drawer, held in palce with blocks nailed with rosehead nails to the underside of the top and rails, are two extending braces fitted with dowel stops and small brass pulls. The upper brace supports its leaf directly; the lower brace slides under a shim nailed to the underside of its leaf with brads. The square legs are stop fluted, with five arched flutes at the outside faces, and joined by a lapped, two-piece X-form openwork stretcher with a gadrooned base molding tenoned with one pin at each leg into their chamfered inside corners. Examined by P.E. Kane, November 22, 2004; notes compiled by T. B. Lloyd.

See also

Bibliography

Christie's, New York, Highly Important American Furniture: The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh B. Cox, sale cat. (June 16, 1984), 50–51, lot 412.
Philip Holzer, Philip and Ann Holzer Collection (n.p.: privately printed, 1990), 34–35, no. 13, ill.
"Christie's, New York, advertisement," Antiques 125, no. 5 (May 1984): 981.
Sotheby's, New York, Important Americana: Furniture, Folk Art, Silver, Porcelain, Prints, and Carpets, sale cat. (January 20–21, 2012), 167, lot 235.
Patricia E. Kane et al., Art and Industry in Early America: Rhode Island Furniture, 1650–1830, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016), 379n12.