BOSTON, 1750-1770

Marble slab tables were among the costliest and most prestigious furniture forms in mid-eighteenth century America. While based on Georgian prototypes, the table offered here has white pine secondary woods as indicated by microanalysis, thus confirming its American, and most likely Boston, origin. A closely related table is in the collections of Winterthur Museum (fig. 1) and displays a virtually identical frame design with frieze, bead molding and coved skirt. Furthermore, the table at Winterthur has canted similar to those on the table offered here. The vestigal C-scroll shaping on the knees is an unusual feature. Dated from 1745 to 1755, the Winterthur table has fully carved C-scroll knees and stylistically earlier small ball-and-claw feet, suggesting that the table in the current lot was made in the 1750s or 1760s. See Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur (Winterthur, Delaware, 1997), pp. 250-251, cat. 128).