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Photo: Courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago, Jessie Spalding Landon Fund, 1957.115
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Dining table

Object number

RIF914

Maker

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

Dimensions

Open: 30 × 61 × 55 in. (76.2 × 154.94 × 139.7 cm)

Date

1755–65

Current location

Art Institute of Chicago

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany (primary); soft maple (one hinged rail); hard maple (one batten); birch (one hinged rail); beech (stationary rails, center upper batten, and one outside upper batten)

Marks

None

Inscriptions

“A,” in graphite, on exterior of stationary section of one hinged rail; “B,” on exterior of stationary rail [same side] behind mobile section of hinged rail; “C,” in graphite, on exterior of mobile section of hinged rail [same side]; “A,” on exterior of other stationary rail behind mobile section of hinged rail; illegible letter [possibly “D”], in graphite, on exterior of mobile section of other hinged rail

Provenance

John S. Walton, New York; sold to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1957

Associated names

John S. Walton, Inc.

Bibliography

Meyric R. Rogers, "American Decorative Arts in the Art Institute of Chicago," Antiques 74, no. 1 (July 1958): 53.
John W. Keefe, The Antiquarian Society of the Art Institute of Chicago: The First One Hundred Years, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1977), 140, no. 164.
Liza Moses and Michael Moses, "Authenticating John Townsend's and John Goddard's Queen Anne and Chippendale Tables," Antiques 121, no. 5 (May 1982): 1134, fig. 11.