An exceptionally fine and rare American Classical mahogany card table from New York City, circa 1825, attributed to the workshop of Brazilia Deming and Erastus Bulkley, active in partnership 1820-1840.

Condition: The present table is in a remarkable and untouched state. It appears to retain the original finish, which has been very lightly cleaned and waxed in a non-invasive manner. The table retains all elements of its original state, including the top’s brass hinges, glue blocks, steel pivoting screw, and brass casters. No patches or repairs to the veneer are evident. A microscopy report of the finish is available on request.

Construction: The table’s canted-corner top is comprised of two solid and highly figured mahogany boards. The top board is lavishly veneered with crotch mahogany bordered with cross banding. The skirt and pocket drawer bottom are constructed of eastern white pine veneered with crotch mahogany. A white pine cross brace runs front to back. Typical of better New York City workshop practices, there is a series of very tidy glue blocks running along the underside of the table’s top. The four supports are comprised of finely carved mahogany, which adhere to the plinth. The four dolphin feet are joined to the plinth with double mortise construction. The table exhibits exceptionally fine carved details.

Attribution: The table has a long history of ownership in a single family and was discovered in storage on a plantation near Abbeville, South Carolina. The importation of New York City furniture into Southern ports was extremely common in the early 19th century, particularly after 1810. Much of this was made to order "custom commissioned" furniture, however, recent scholarship has shown that a there was a significant number of entrepreneurial cabinetshops who brought their own wares into cities, such as Charleston, in order to market them directly to America’s growing elite. The purpose in so doing was to eliminate the challenges and frustrations customers faced in attempting to order goods out of state, sometimes from cabinetshops often to busy to take orders. A letter from Mrs. Sarah Elliot Huger of Charleston demonstrates this:

Mr. Phyfe is so much the United States rage that is with difficulty now, that one can procure and audience even of a few moments; not a week since I waited in company with a dozen others at least an hour in his cold shop and after all, was obliged to return home, without seeing the great man; However a few days since I had the great fortune to arrive at his house just at the moment he was entering and consequently extorted from him another promise that the furniture should certainly be finished in three weeks. The tables from $325 to $350; Phyfe says he cannot tell precisely the price.

The New York Cabinetshop owned by Deming and Bulkely began importing their products into the city of Charleston in 1818 and opened a retail shop or "Ware-house" on King Street, which, by all accounts was extremely successful. A substantial grouping of furniture is now positively linked to the firm through invoices and other records, as well as by idiosyncratic details favored by the partnership. The highly specialized motifs exhibited in the present table’s base, most notably, the dolphin supports and feet, would strongly suggest an association with the Deming and Bulkley workshop, an assumption further strengthened by its long South Carolina history. A recent study attributed ten card tables, containing either dolphin supports or feet, to the Deming and Bulkley workshop. All of these had Charleston, South Carolina, histories.

Dimensions: Height 28", Depth 18", Width 37".

CA.03.DB.124.1

Reference: J. Bivins, Jr., "A Catalogue of Northern Furniture with Southern

Provenances: MESDA Journal, November 1989.

W. Cooper, Classical Taste in America 1800-1840, Abbeville

Press, 1993.

P. Kenny, Honore Lannuier, Cabinetmaker from Paris, Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York, 1998.

D. Hewett, "Hewett?s American Cabinetmakers 1999-2000 Edition".

R. Leath/ M. McInnis, "Beautiful Specimens, Elegant Patterns: New

York Furniture for the Charleston market 1810-1840", American

Furniture edited by Luke Beckerdite. Chipstone Foundation 1996.