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Pembroke table

Object number

RIF148

Maker

Maker John Townsend, American, 1732/33?1809

Dimensions

26 3/4 × 20 1/8 × 33 1/8 in. (67.945 × 51.118 × 84.138 cm)

Date

1785–1805

Current location

Private collection

Geography

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

Medium

Mahogany (primary); maple (rails, and cross braces); chestnut (blocks, drawer supports, and drawer bottom); yellow poplar (drawer sides and back)

Marks

"Made By / John Townsend, / Newport," printed on a paper label glued to the interior bottom of the drawer

Inscriptions

None

Style

Hepplewhite, Federal

Provenance

Robert W. Skinner, Inc., Bolton, Massachusetts, January 19, 1974; sold to Israel Sack, Inc., New York, 1974; sold to a private collection, 1974

Associated names

Robert W. Skinner, Inc.
Israel Sack, Inc.

Construction

The top is attached to the frame with screws in three battens that span the underside of the top and are dovetailed to the tops of the stationary rails and by rectangular glue blocks with chamfered edges?one at the rear rail and two along the side rails and front rails. The stationary rails are fastened to the hinged rails with rosehead nails; they overhang the rear legs and vetical blocks between the rear legs and the rear rail. The drawer supports are rebatted to fit around the vertical blocks at the junction of the front legs and front rail. The drawer front is fastened to the drawer sides with a half key dovetails at the top and bottom and two full dovetails between. The drawer bottom fits in a rabbet in the drawer front and is nailed to the four sides. The teeth of the hinges are rounded; the edges of the leaf supports are slanted; handholds are scooped out of the fixed part of the hinged rail. The pins in the hinges are wood. Examined by P. E. Kane, September 7, 2003

See also

Bibliography

"Robert W. Skinner, Inc., advertisement," Antiques 105, no. 1 (January 1974): 40, ill.
Michael Moses and Liza Moses, "Authenticating John Townsend's Later Tables," Antiques 119, no. 5 (May 1981): 1154, fig. 4–4a.
Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards (Tenafly, N.J.: MMI Americana Press, 1984), 69, 89,143, fig. 2.12–2.12a.
Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker, exh. cat. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005), 158–59, no. 38, ill.