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Photo: Courtesy Newport Restoration Foundation, R.I., 1999.392
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Dining table

Object number

RIF4072

Maker

Maker John Townsend, American, 1732/33?1809

Dimensions

Open: 27 1/2 × 97 5/8 × 48 1/4 in. (69.85 × 247.97 × 122.56 cm)

Date

1796

Current location

Newport Restoration Foundation, Rhode Island

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany, mahogany veneer, lightwood inlay (primary); maple, chestnut, and white pine (secondary)

Marks

"MADE BY / JOHN TOWNSEND / NEWPORT," in ink, printed on paper label, and "1796," in ink, written on lower right of paper label, glued to center back of back rail of one half-round end

Inscriptions

"A," on outside of one swing rail; "B," in chalk, on outside of fixed rail on other side; "A McG," in graphite, mostly illegible, on inside of one swing rail; "B," in graphite, on exterior of rear rail of one D end; possibly "A," in graphite, beneath label on exterior rear rail of other D end

Style

Federal

Provenance

Annie H. Cook (born ca. 1889) and Benjamin Ladd Cook (1885–1968), Providence, Rhode Island; by descent to Mrs. Norman Cook, Middletown, Rhode Island; sold to Doris Duke (1912–1993) for Newport Restoration Foundation, Rhode Island, 1972; Whitehorne House Museum, Newport Restoration Foundation, Rhode Island, from 1974

Associated names

Benjamin L. Cook
Mrs. Benjamin Ladd Cook
Mrs. Norman Cook
Doris Duke

See also

Bibliography

Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 82, 125, fig. 2.10, 3.44–3.44a.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 171–73, no. 43, ill.
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), 409nn1–2.