Center Table with Scroll Legs, Paw Feet and Marble Tops

RECORDED: Robert D. Mussey, Jr., and Clark Pearce, “Classical Excellence in Boston: The Furniture of Isaac Vose, 1789–1825,” in Boston Furniture 1700–1900, (Boston: The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2016), p. 271 fig. 31 illus., 272 // Robert D. Mussey, Jr., and Clark Pearce, Rather Elegant Than Showy: The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose, exhib. cat. (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, in association with David R. Godine, 2018), pp. 128–29, 130 fig. 148

EXHIBITED: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2018–19, Augmenting the Canon: Recent Acquisitions of American Neo-Classical Decorative Arts, no. 42 not illustrated

In the years after Thomas Seymour closed his own shop in 1817, he worked first for Thomas Barker in the years 1817–19, and then for Isaac Vose, from 1819 until the closure of the Vose shop in 1825.

In their recent study of Vose and the later work of Thomas Seymour, Robert D. Mussey, Jr., and Clark Pearce assigned both this center table and a matching pier table to the Barker/Seymour shop or the Vose/Seymour association in the years 1818–20.

A large silhouette by Augustin-Amant-Constan-Fidèle Edouart (1789–1861) shows Daniel P. Parker and his family in the parlor of their home at 40 Beacon Street, Boston (Mussey and Peace, Rather Elegant, p. 129 figs. 147A and B). In the curved niche at the left, reflecting the bay on the front of the house, is a table that is either the pier table referenced above (collection of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, FAPG 20975D/2; ibid., p. 131 fig. 149), or another of identical or similar design. Also shown by Edouart is a center table with three identical scroll legs that sit on a platform that itself appears to be lifted off the carpet by casters. That table has a horizontally reeded skirt in which is inserted a drawer that appears to be outfitted as a desk.

The present center table is identical in design to the Parker center table, although it lacks the reeding on the skirt, and the drawer.

Mussey and Pearce originally surmised that the Parker center table was possibly an English import—“the table is likely English, with its apron panels of thick reeding” (Classical Excellence, p. 271)—that served as the inspiration for the present center table and the companion pier table. But subsequently they wrote that “it could have been either imported or made in Boston” (Rather Elegant, p. 128), and based upon a whole group of furniture of related design, including a monumental side table made for Parker’s next-door neighbor, Nathan Appleton (collection of Historic New England, Boston; ibid., p. 107 fig. 119), there is little reason to look for its origin outside of Boston.

Mussey and Pearce also ponder the possibility that the present table may once have had a platform like that of the Parker table. But with its height of 29 3/4 inches, including its marble top, it would stand about 33 inches in height if it originally had a platform, and whereas 28 1/2–30 1/2 is the standard range of the height for center tables of this period, a height of about 33 inches falls substantially out of the norm. Further, a careful examination of the bottoms of the three legs reveals that they were originally hollowed out so that the casters were largely housed within the legs, adding only about 1/2-inch to the height of the table. (In their catalogue of the Vose exhibition, Mussey and Pearce erroneously give the height of the table as 36 inches [p. 130, fig 148]).

The present center table was supplied with a replacement marble top for its appearance in the Vose exhibition because it was judged at the time that the overhang of the marble top that had descended with it was too large. But an examination of the top that originally came with the table reveals substantial discoloration (“witness”) around the edge, which confirms that it was indeed the original top. It is likely not coincidental that the related pier table has a matching marble top, which also appears on the Appleton side table, signaling either a single commission, or a shop with a preference for a specific type of marble.

The carving on the table is by Thomas Wightman, who had a long association with Seymour, first when he ran his own shop, and later during his years with Barker and then Vose.