A Fine Chippendale Carved and Figured Mahogany Stop-Fluted Drop Leaf Dining Table, Goddard-Townsend school, probably by John Townsend, Newport, Rhode Island, circa 1780

Christies, New York, Important American Furniture, Silver, Folk Art and Decorative Arts, October 18, 1986

Secondary wood is maple. One cross strut on underside of top replaced.
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Newport tables of the form represented here are extremely rare. This one exhibits exceptional workmanship, a handsome design, high quality materials and broad proportions. Adding to its significance is its association with John Townsend (1733-1809), the acclaimed Newport cabinetmaker. The basis for this rests in the similarities of its design with that of his stop-fluted furniture, which he began producing after the Revolution, in the mid-1780s.

John Townsend was born in Newport in 1733, the son of Christopher Townsend (1701-1787), a co-founder of the family dynasty of cabinetmakers, and his wife Patience (Easton). He apprenticed in his father's shop, probably between about 1747 and 1754, and established his own business soon after. His highly accomplished working career spanned nearly fifty years during which time he was elected one of a dozen surveyors of highways in 1765 and 1767 and was briefly imprisoned in 1777 with 61 other Newport citizens for refusing to sign a pledge of allegiance to the King. He later served as Town Treasurer between 1780 or 81 and 1784. At age 34, he married Philadelphia Feke (1743-1802) and they had six children. Three of his sons – John, Solomon, and Christopher – worked in the family cabinet shop and carried on the tradition. In 1809, John Townsend died a man of considerable wealth. His will lists several examples of stop-fluted furniture, including "1 square mahogany 4 ft. table with fluted legs," "all mahogany 3 ft. square table with fluted legs," and "one square pembroke table, with stretchers."¹

This table bears hallmarks of his work in the stop-fluted style, which is characterized by the use of square straight legs with fluting on the outer sides, the lower sections of which are stop-fluted. Four tables in this style have the label Townsend used between 1786 and 1793. These include one card table at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and three Pembroke tables in the collections of Winterthur Museum, a private collection, and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, respectively.²  Like Townsend's documented work, this table is made of dense mahogany and follows the high quality design and precision of execution found in his furniture. Two other tables attributed to Townsend with similar details include a china table at Winterthur and a basin stand in a private collection.³

¹ Morrison Heckscher, John Townsend: Newport Cabinetmaker (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005): pp. 48-70.
² See ibid, figs. 33-35, pp. 142-51.
³ See ibid, fig. 36-7, pp. 152-5.