A Chippendale carved and figured mahogany games table, New York circa 1765

The importance of card playing as a primary social entertainment in the eighteenth century is well substantiated by the large number of surviving gaming tables. This games table is a classic example of a type made in New York, characterized by a serpentine façade with a carved front rail, large projecting front square corners, a playing surface with counters and candle rests, cabriole legs with leaf- and scroll-carved knees, claw feet, and a fifth leg that pivots outward to support the top when opened. The form has long been considered one of the masterpieces of American Rococo furniture design and more than seventy-five examples have been identified, representing several shop traditions.
Superior for its crisp carving, delicate form, and refined proportions, this previously unrecorded games table relates to a group of tables identified as Type II, or Beekman type, card tables by Morrison Heckscher in “The New York Serpentine Card Table," The Magazine Antiques (May 1973): 974-983. A pair of card tables originally owned by James W. Beekman (1732-1807) that sold in these rooms, Important Americana, January 21-2, 2000, sale 7420, lot 718 typifies Type II tables. A possible retailer for the Beekman tables may have been William Proctor, a merchant listed in New York City directories working at 56 King Street and 57 Pine Street. In 1768, Proctor sold Beekman a card table, a transaction recorded in Beekman's household account book for the date January 15, 1768 as “to William Proctor for a card table 85 / a china d. 95 / 4 windsor chairs 44 / 11.4.?
With its pine front and side skirts veneered with mahogany and oak back outer skirt, this table follows the typical construction of Type II tables noted by Heckscher.  The table displays the additional distinguishing characteristics of a shallow serpentine skirt, a gadrooned molding below the front skirt only, distinctive foliate and asymmetrical C-scroll knee carving with peanuts and pinwheels, and claw feet with high balls and pointed claws.  The unusual and elaborate bookmatched crotch veneers on the skirt are known on two other Type II tables that appear to stem from the same shop.  One at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a triple top and an inlaid backgammon board was owned by Robert W. Weir (1803-1889), a drawing instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point between 1834 and 1876 (see Morrison Heckscher, American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (1985): no. 103, p. 171.  Its mate now in a private collection, also with a triple top and an inlaid backgammon board, was originally  owned by Edward de Forest (1708-1782) of Stratford, Connecticut, and descended in his family.

Other Type II table construction characteristics found on this table include front and side skirts cut straight and mitered at the corners on the inside, forming a rectangular recess under the table; gadrooned moldings nailed to the bottom of the front skirt; and the stationary half of the outside skirt board nailed to the inner board. Several other examples of Type II tables are at the Museum of the City of New York, Winterthur Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the State Department, and the Henry Ford Museum as well as in several private collections. One with a history in the Van Vechten family of New York sold in these rooms, Highly Important Americana from the Stanley Paul Sax Collection, January 17, 1998, sale 7087, lot 467. Another is illustrated as a “Masterpiece'' in Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture, New York, 1993, p. 283.