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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

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.
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.