Lot 877
  • 877

VERY RARE QUEEN ANNE CARVED AND FIGURED MAHOGANY TILT-TOP TEA TABLE, POSSIBLY BY JOHN GODDARD, NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, CIRCA 1770

Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
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Description

  • mahogany
  • Height 25 in. by Width 27 3/8 in. by Depth 27 in.

Condition

With a 1/2 in. filler strip added between two sections of top; keyhole escutcheon and lock on door replaced; with a 1/2 in. tapered patch to outward top edge of door; upper hinge on door replaced; drawers numbered consecutively 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; underside of top with two later butterflies securing the tip of leaf.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

This round "snap" table is one of only eight other tables in this unusual design known: one at the Museum Fine Arts, Boston; one at the Lyman Allyn Museum in New London, Connecticut; one at the Newport Restoration Foundation; one formerly owned by Herbert Newton (present location unknown); one at Winterthur Museum; and two others offered at auction in 1969 and 1981.1

All tables in the group have circular tops, triangular platforms, and cabriole legs.  Despite the similarity of design, the tables vary considerably in their size, materials, construction, and decoration. Winterthur's table is the largest of the group and is the only one with a shaped lower edge to the platform.  The tables at the Museum Fine Arts, Boston, Lyman Allyn Museum and the Newport Restoration Foundation both have the five-toed paw feet found on some Newport stands.  Newport cabinetmakers also produced a similar triangular platform with four-toed paw feet that was used extensively on fire screens. The platform base is an English design.  Ince and Mayhew included a teakettle stand with a platform base in The Universal System of Houshold Furniture.

Of the seven tables in the group, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the exampled offered at auction in 1981 both reputedly were made by John Goddard.  The table at the Lyman Allyn Museum's history states that it was owned in the late eighteenth century by John and Sarah (Starr) Deshon of New London.

1 For the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston table, see Edwin J. Hipkiss, Eighteenth-Century of American Arts: The M. and M. Karolik collection of paintings, drawings, engravings, furniture, silver, needlework & incidental objects gathered to illustrate the achievements of American artists and craftsmen of the period from 1720 to 1820, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1941), pp. 110-1, no. 59 has a tradition of manufacture by John Goddard as a gift for his daughter Catherine.  Catherine Goddard married Perry Weaver, and the table descended in the Weaver family of Rhode Island.  The Lyman Allyn Museum example was published in Malcolm A. Norton, "The Cabinet Pedestal Table," The Magazine Antiques 4, no. 4 (November 1923): 224-25.  For the Newport Restoration Foundation table, see Michael Moses, Master craftsmen of Newport: The Townsends and Goddards, (Tenafly, NJ: MMI Americana Press, 1984), fig. 1.36.  The Winterthur example was published in Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans with Wendy A. Cooper and Michael S. Podmaniczky, New England Furniture at Winterthur: Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods, (Winterthur, DE: Winterthur Museum, 1997), pp. 278-9, no. 147.  Parke Bernet Galleries, Important Eighteenth Century American Furniture, October 25, 1969, lot 84.  Sotheby Parke Bernet, Fine Americana September 26, 1981, sale 4692Y, lot 445 which by tradition was purchased from John Goddard in 1768 and descended in the Durfee and Borden families of Newport, Portsmouth, and Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Fall River, Massachusetts.