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Tea table
about 1760
Object Place: Boston, Massachusetts
Medium/Technique
Mahogany, pine
Dimensions
67.3 x 78.7 x 54.6 cm (26 1/2 x 31 x 21 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Mrs. Mary H. Hayes
Accession Number44.680
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsFurniture – Tables, stands, screens
Catalogue Raisonné
Randall 81
DescriptionThe table has a flat top with a rounded edge which is scalloped in plan with fourteen half-round and three-quarter-round projections. The rails have applied half-round blocks, three on each side and two on each end, and there are turret corners. The sides are finished with a quarter-round molding on the lower edge. The legs are of straightish cabriole form with deep knee brackets of eccentric outline. The claw and ball feet have knuckled claws.
There was an applied molded lip around the top of the table, which is indicated by a scribe line and by tack holes. The blocking of the sides is masked by a solid scalloped strip applied to the bottom, the face of which forms the lower molding of the sides. The corner turrets are formed from large square blocks into which the legs are doweled. To the inner corners of these blocks are glued two triangular pine blocks. There are ten pine blocks glued between the top and sides, and four are missing. One leg was broken and has been repaired by inserting a piece of mahogany at the back of the knee.
There was an applied molded lip around the top of the table, which is indicated by a scribe line and by tack holes. The blocking of the sides is masked by a solid scalloped strip applied to the bottom, the face of which forms the lower molding of the sides. The corner turrets are formed from large square blocks into which the legs are doweled. To the inner corners of these blocks are glued two triangular pine blocks. There are ten pine blocks glued between the top and sides, and four are missing. One leg was broken and has been repaired by inserting a piece of mahogany at the back of the knee.
ProvenanceA typescript memorandum written by Charles Bemis Gleason in December 1945 and entitled "History of My Old Furniture," indicates that, according to family tradition, this table was probably owned, possibly originally, by one Ebenezer Hall (b. 1743) of Medford, Massachusetts, and his wife, a "Jones girl" from Weston or Concord. It descended to Susan Mitchell (Hall) Fitch (b. 1808, d. ca. 1901), probably their grand-daughter, and appears in a list of her possessions written ca. 1890 as "a Mahog. scalloped table . . .Grandmother Jones of Weston." It passed by descent to her niece, Miss Mary Harlow Hayes (d. 1944) of Medford, who lent it to the Museum and eventually left it as a bequest. Bequest of Miss Mary H. Hayes, Medford, Mass.(Accession Date September 14, 1944)