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Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's, New York
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Bureau table

Object number

RIF684

Maker

Maker Unknown

Dimensions

30 1/4 × 35 1/2 × 20 in. (76.835 × 90.17 × 50.8 cm)

Date

1760–75

Current location

Unknown

Geography

Probably made in Providence, Rhode Island
(view a map of Rhode Island)

Medium

Mahogany

Marks

Unknown

Inscriptions

Unknown

Provenance

Dr. William Bowen (1749–1832), Providence, Rhode Island; by descent to his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Amory (née Elizabeth Bowen, born 1776), Boston; by descent to her daughter Mrs. William Raymond Lee (née Helen Maria Amory, 1812–1893), Marblehead, Massachusetts; by descent to her daughter Mrs. Oswald Herbert Ernst (née Elizabeth Amory Lee, 1843–1939), West Point, New York; by descent to Mrs. William Morton Grinnell (née Elizabeth Lee Ernst, 1871–1945), New York; by descent in the Bowen family; sold Sotheby's, New York, January 26 and 28, 1984, lot 843

Associated names

Dr. William Bowen
Elizabeth Bowen
Helen Maria Amory
Elizabeth Amory Lee
Bowen family
Elizabeth Lee Ernst
Sotheby's

Bibliography

Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 332, fig. 8.19.
Sotheby's, New York, Important American Furniture, Decorations, Silver, and Chinese Export Porcelain, sale cat. (January 26 and 28, 1984), lot 843, ill.
Brock Jobe, "The Lisle Desk-and-Bookcase: A Rhode Island Icon," American Furniture (2001): 129.
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), 313n4.