Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy private collection Click the image to enlarge	Dining table
	Object number RIF1218
	Maker Maker, probably by John Goddard, American, 1723–1785
	Dimensions Closed: 27 1/2 � 15 1/2 � 53 1/2 in. (69.85 � 39.37 � 135.89 cm) Width, open: 57 1/4 in. (145.42 cm)
	Date 1755–70
	Current location Private Collection
	Geography Made in Newport, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany (primary); maple (hinged and stationary rail, battens, and glue blocks for top); chestnut (vertical corner block)
	Marks None
	Inscriptions None
	Provenance Thomas Tillinghast or Joseph Tillinghast (died 1777), East Hampton, Long Island, New York; by descent to William Tillinghast, East Hampton, Long Island, New York; by descent in the Tillinghast family, East Hampton, New York, before 1989. Leigh Keno American Antiques, New York, 1989
	Associated names Leigh Keno American Antiques Tillinghast family Thomas Tillinghast Joseph Tillinghast William Tillinghast
	Construction The single-board top has bowed ends and a quarter round edge and is flanked by half round leaves-one single-board, the other two-board- similarly edged. The joint between them is quarter round. The top and leaves are joined by four sets of iron hinges, each leaf thrice-screwed, set just outward of the legs. The top is secured to the frame with screw pockets--one each inside the flat-arched short rails--and by two transverse braces, screwed into the top and let into rectangular voids in the stationary rails. The top of each hinged rail is cut out to accommodate these braces, which have half round ends containing screws. There is an additional transverse brace, screwed into the underside of the top at the midpoint of the frame, which does not pass through the hinged rails. There are also multiple rectangular horizontal glue blocks within the frame at the joint between the top and the stationary rails. The frame is further held together by two transverse braces, dovetailed into the bottoms of the stationary rails. The hinged and stationary rails are joined by rosehead nails. The stationary rails meet the short rails in a rabbeted dovetail joint with finely cut narrow-necked pins and half-pins above and below, each joint reinforced by a vertical rectangular glue block within the frame. The hinged rails join their legs in mortise and tenon joints, with two wood pins apiece. The knee brackets are attached by brads and glue, the hinged rails move by means of round, five-knuckled hinges, and the cabriole legs, square-sectioned and sharp-kneed, have vigorously carved tendons and claws, clutching elongated ball feet. Examined by P.E. Kane, and W.S. Braznell, August 22, 2012; notes compiled by T.B. Lloyd.
	Bibliography "Leigh Keno American Furniture advertisement," Antiques 136, no. 4 (October 1989): 674, ill. Dean F. Failey, Long Island Is My Nation: The Decorative Arts and Craftsmen, 1640–1830 (Cold Spring, N.Y.: Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, 1998), 9-42. 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), 58n25.