A Fine Queen Anne Figured Mahogany Fly Tea Table, Newport, Rhode Island, possibly by John Goddard, circa 1765

Termed as a “fly tea table,” “claw table,” and “pillar and claw table” during the eighteenth century, the tripod tea table form represented here was designed for the service of tea with a tilting top to allow for storage against a wall or in a corner when not in use. Tables of this type were made with the greatest frequency in Newport during the 1760s and 1770s and although Job Townsend, Jr., Benjamin Baker and James Taylor of Newport and Job Danforth of Providence were known to have made them, only two surviving examples can be linked with their makers. These include one signed by Joseph Sanford (1740-1784) that sold at Northeast Auctions, Property from the Collection of Cora and Benjamin Ginsburg, August 3, 2003, lot 1803 and one made by John Goddard (1723-1785) for James Atkinson (d. 1806) in 1773 and documented by a bill of sale, which records the price as £3. The latter and its accompanying bill of sale sold in these rooms, Important Americana, January 20-23,2005, sale 8053, lot 1202 for $180,000.

Rhode Island tables of this form are the focus of Patricia Kane’s article “The Palladian Style in Rhode Island Furniture: Fly Tea Tables” published in American Furniture 1999, pp. 1-16. She identifies eleven examples of the standard Palladian design of the present table, with a columnar pillar supported by serpentine legs ending in snake or small paw feet (Kane, p. 5). All display cleats stepped in the regional style of Newport as well as Doric columns probably inspired by those prominently featured at the Redwood Library, a building designed by Peter Harrison in the English Palladian style and built in 1748. The distinctive five-toed foot seen on this table is a feature associated with Goddard found on other Newport fly tea tables with Doric-column pillars, including one at Historic New England, one in a private collection with a history in the Brownell family of Westport, Massachusetts, and another in a private collection, all illustrated in Kane as figs. 5, 6, and 9 on pp. 5-7 and 9. Kane has shown, however, that these tables exhibit construction methods that differ from those identified as Goddard’s practice and such similarities in carving illustrate a regional preference or possibly the work of the same carver who worked for different shops.