Description:
Center table made possibly in Lanesborough, Massachusetts or Bennington, Vermont, areas quarried marble was available during this period. It has a round white marble top and original Spanish brown paint. The table has a heavily constructed, tripod base composed of three cabriole legs terminating in composite snake feet; below a turned shaft ornamented with a large Classical urn. It features a rotating bird-cage mechanism comprising two boards separated by four short turned balusters and a scalloped ring, to which is attached two heavy cross braces to support the heavy marble. Rectangular slab tables with marble tops for safely serving beverages at the side of the parlor were available in coastal cities during the latter half of the eighteenth century. This tea table with pivoting marble top may be unique because of its weight, expense and more rural origins. The unidentified craftsman, who designed the table to accommodate the weight by massing wood at critical points in the legs and shaft, may have lived near Lanesborough, Massachusetts, or Bennington, Vermont, where white marble for gravestones was first quarried by the 1780s. Perhaps initiating a new fashion for room use with old designs, the table must have been left set up in the center of the room rather than stored upright in a corner since the top cannot tip. Inspired by Philadelphia and Hartford County, CT. (Chapin) prototypes for round tea tables, this example is significant for the unique adaptation of the form to support a round, rotating slab of marble. The table must have been among the earliest center tables made in western Massachusetts, inaugurating the radical change from mobile to fixed furniture in formal room use. The top board support is birch.
Label Text:
Tea tables are rectangular or round and present particular advantages. Rectangular examples function like a tray on legs and are easily moved. On round tea tables, the cage beneath the top offers the refinement of rotating the surface, so that the host may present the teawares to guests without picking them up. When not in use, this feature permits releasing the top to a vertical position for storage in the corner of the room.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+1998.15 |
