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Photo: Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 62.138
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Marble slab table

Object number

RIF773

Maker

Maker Unknown
Maker, possibly by John Goddard, American, 1723?1785

Dimensions

Height: 28 in. (71.12 cm) Width, top: 48 1/2 in. (123.19 cm) Width, skirt: 48 in. (121.92 cm) Width, feet: 50 in. (127 cm) Depth, top: 16 in. (40.64 cm) Depth, skirt: 15 in. (38.1 cm) Depth, feet: 17 in. (43.18 cm)

Date

1760–90

Current location

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany and mahogany veneer (primary); maple (rails); white pine (glue blocks); marble (top)

Marks

Unknown

Inscriptions

Unknown

Style

Chippendale

Provenance

Originally owned by Governor Joseph Wanton (1705–1780), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his daughter Mrs. Thomas Wickham (née Elizabeth Wanton), Newport, Rhode Island, after 1762; by descent to her daughter Mrs. Walter Clarke Gardiner (née Elizabeth Wickham), Hudson, New York, after 1794; given to Christ Church, Hudson, New York, about 1802–1803; sold to Ginsburg and Levy, Inc., New York, after 1951; sold to Vincent D. Andrus (1916–1962), Greenwich, Connecticut, before 1962; bequeathed to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1962

Associated names

Governor Joseph Wanton
Elizabeth Wanton
Elizabeth Wickham
Christ Church, Hudson, New York
Ginsburg and Levy, Inc.
Vincent D. Andrus

Construction

"The marble top, fitting into a rabbet cut into the cornice molding, rests on the rails. Both the top and cornice extend three-quarters of an inch beyond the rear rail. The rails are double pegged to the stiles, reinforced at each corner with a large vertical quarter-round glue block. The front and side rails are faced with vertical flitches of figured mahogany, those at the corners continuing the darker tone of the supporting legs and brackets. The quarter-round moldings glued to the skirt fronts are toenailed from below. The knees and brackets of the front legs have intaglio leaf carving; those of the rear legs are uncarved." Source: Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Random House, 1985), 159?160, no. 95.

Bibliography

James Biddle, American Art from American Collections: Decorative Arts, Paintings, and Prints of the Colonial and Federal Periods from Private Collections, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1963), 44, no. 78, ill.
Liza Moses and Michael Moses, "Authenticating John Townsend's and John Goddard's Queen Anne and Chippendale Tables," Antiques 121, no. 5 (May 1982): 1136, 1138–1141, fig. 27–29.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 11, 43, fig. 1.28.
Morrison H. Heckscher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Late Colonial Period, The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Random House, 1985), 159–60, 344, no. 95, ill.
Sotheby's, New York, Fine American Furniture, Folk Art, Folk Paintings, and Silver, sale cat. (June 26, 1986), lot 62 (comp. cit.).
Philip Zea, "The Serpentine Furniture of Colonial Newport," American Furniture (1999): 266, fig. 23.
"Collections Database, Pier Table [62.138a, b], Attributed to John Goddard (1723–1785)," http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/10005787?rpp=20&pg=1&ft=62.138&pos=2 (accessed July 19, 2012).