image of object
Liza and Michael Moses Photographic Archive, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
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Bureau table

Object number

RIF110

Maker

Maker, attributed to Edmund Townsend, American, 1736/7–1811

Dimensions

33 1/4 × 35 × 19 in. (84.455 × 88.9 × 48.26 cm)

Date

1765–85

Current location

The Erving and Joyce Wolf Collection

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany (primary); chestnut (bottom board, some interior glue blocks, brackets and glue blocks of rear feet); pine (cabinet shelves); yellow poplar (all other secondary wood)

Marks

None

Inscriptions

"1" through "6," in graphite and chalk, on interior backs of small drawers [from upper proper-right to upper proper-left]; "2" and "5," in graphite, on interior bottoms of respective drawers; "5," in chalk, on interior proper-right side of drawer 5; "X," in chalk, on interior sides of drawer 5; "1" and "2," in graphite, on tops of dividers under upper two proper-right drawers; "4" and "5," in graphite, on tops of dividers under upper two proper-left small drawers; possibly "T," in graphite, on interior sides at upper front corners; "2," in graphite, on underside of rear batten of top at proper-right end; "2" and "5," in graphite, on underside of rear batten of top at proper-right and left ends, respectively; "3" and "5," in graphite, on underside of front batten of top at proper-right and left ends, respectively, corresponding "3" and "5," in graphite, on interior proper-right and left sides, respectively [at upper front corners]; "J," "78," and illegible letter or symbol, in graphite, on underside of rear batten of top; illegible graphite number or letter, on interior proper-left case side under middle drawer runner; "M" or "W," incised on interior proper-right side of case; "...RA... / ...LEC... / [New Yo]rk / (W. Shir. [T.)] / ...e below / [?] / New York / (W. Shr. T.) N...," printed on torn paper label, glued to case bottom

Provenance

George Gibbs, Jr., (1735–1803), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent to his daughter, Sarah Gibbs (died 1866), 1803; by descent to her niece, Sarah Gibbs (1842–1924), 1866; by descent to her daughter, Sarah Gibbs Thompson (1879–1939), 1924; by descent in her family, until 1983; consigned to Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, January 27 and 29, 1983, lot 433

Associated names

Gibbs family
George Gibbs, Jr.
Sarah Gibbs
Sarah Gibbs
Sotheby Parke Bernet
Sarah Gibbs Thompson

See also

Bibliography

Barbara Snow, "Living with Antiques: The Providence Home of Mrs. R.H. Ives Goddard," Antiques 87, no. 5 (May 1965): 585, ill.
"Sotheby's advertisement," Antiques 123, no. 1 (January 1983): 43, ill.
Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, Important American Furniture, and Related Decorative Arts, sale cat. (January 27 and 29, 1983), lot 433.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 17, fig. 10.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 283–284, pl. 20, fig. 7.10–7.10a–c.
Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (New York: Crown Publishers, 1993), 156.
Harold Sack, "Authenticating American Eighteenth-Century Furniture," Antiques 127, no. 5 (May 1985): 1128, pl. V.
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), 284nn2, 4.