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From: Gronning and Coes, "The Early Work of John Townsend in the Christopher Townsend Shop Tradition,"American Furniture(2013):42
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Card table

Object number

RIF19

Maker

Maker John Townsend, American, 1732/33–1809

Dimensions

Closed: 27 × 35 × 16 1/2 in. (68.58 × 88.9 × 41.91 cm)

Date

1762

Current location

Private Collection

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany (primary); chestnut (corner blocks and horizontal glue blocks); yellow poplar (corner blocks and lower brace); maple (hinged and stationary rails)

Marks

"John Townsend / Newport / 1762," in graphite, between hinged rails; "John Townsend / 1762," in graphite, on medial brace

Inscriptions

None

Provenance

Hyman Grossman, Inc., Boston, before 1980. Peter W. Eliot, by 1980 until at least 1982. Eric Noah, New York, 2005

Associated names

Hyman Grossman
Peter Eliot
Eric Noah

Construction

Both rear legs swing on rounded hinges. Braces are dovetailed to the bottom and top of the front rail and the stationary rail. The tops of the rear legs are rabetted to fit under the back corners of the table. The underside of the top has rough toothing plane marks. The top is held in place with three screws in pockets on the front rail and three on the stationary rail, as well as four horizontal glue blocks. The stationary rail is attached to the hinged rail with four rosehead nails. Marks from a bench dog are visible on the underside of the hinged rails. The stationary rail is dovetailed to the sides of the frame; the joints are reinforced with two-part corner blocks; the rear rail is relieved to accept the blocks. The front and side rails are tenoned into the front legs and are held in place with glue, but not pegs; two-part corner blocks reinforce those joints. Examined by P. E. Kane and D. A. Carr, May 9, 2006.

Notes

Some Rhode Island card tables on cabriole legs with claw-and-ball front feet and pad rear feet have blocked corners as well as blocking at the center of the front skirt. See the related examples below.

See also

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): 1131, fig. 2–2a.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 12, 89, 91,109, pl. 8, fig. 3.21–3.21a, 3.35.
Michael Moses and Liza Moses, "Authenticating John Townsend's Later Tables," Antiques 119, no. 5 (May 1981): 1161–1162, fig. 15–15a.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 61, 80–83, 186–89, no. 2, fig. 51, 60.
Wendy A. Cooper, In Praise of America: American Decorative Arts, 1650–1830, Fifty Years of Discovery since the 1929 Girl Scouts Loan Exhibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 27, fig. 24.
Wendy A. Cooper, In Praise of America: Masterworks of American Decorative Arts, 1650-1830 (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1980), 14, fig. 3.
Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984), 34, fig. I-39.
Erik K. Gronning and Amy Coes, "The Early Work of John Townsend in the Christopher Townsend Shop Tradition," American Furniture (2013): 42–43, fig. 94–96.
William C. Ketchum Jr., American Cabinetmakers: Marked American Furniture, 1640-1940 (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), 343.