Chippendale Carved and Figured Mahogany Marble-Top Sideboard Table, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Circa 1765

William Ledwith;

Thomas Curran;

Israel Sack Inc., New York.

Magazine Antiques (April 1937): 188.

During the Colonial period, tables like this one were usually positioned against the “pier” of a wall, or that part of the wall between the windows, and designed with impervious marble tops to accommodate the service of food and drink. Such tables were finished on three sides and often made in pairs. The 1772 Philadelphia Price Book classifies these tables as “frames for Marble Stands” or “frames for Marble Slab,” four or five feet in length and having either claw or Marlborough feet. The prices quoted included £3.10 for Marlborough legs and brackets, £4 for plain knees and claw feet and £5 for leaves on the knees with carved moldings. Made of mahogany and with an egg-and-dart molding and a gadrooned apron, this table represents one of the more expensive versions and would have cost the significant sum of £6.

A very similar Philadelphia marble-top table is in the collection of Winterthur Museum.¹ It also displays an egg-and-dart molding, a gadrooned apron, and ball and claw feet as well as the additional embellishment of acanthus carved knees. William M. Hornor illustrates it in Blue Book Philadelphia Furniture (1935, pl. 209) as the “splendid Norris Family Sideboard Table with Nice Elements – the Egg-and-Dart Frame, Gadroon Molding, and Deep Cartouch-Carved Knees.” The two tables are very closely related in form, carving, and dimension and may stem from the same shop tradition.

¹ Joseph Downs, American Furniture, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952): no. 359.