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Card table
about 1760
Object Place: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Medium/Technique
Mahogany, white pine
Dimensions
Overall: 73 x 90.2 x 42.5 cm (28 3/4 x 35 1/2 x 16 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mary Drake in memory of Clifford S. Drake
Accession Number1991.1012
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAmericas
ClassificationsFurniture – Tables, stands, screens
This table is made of mahogany, a tropical hardwood imported into colonial America from the West Indies and Central America. By the 1730s mahogany had become a fashionable cabinet wood in Boston, where it was sold at auctions or through merchants. William Douglass, a Boston physician, observed in 1755 that "Mahogany wood of the West Indies" was an excellent choice for furniture, "much surpassing the red cedar of Carolina and Bermudas, which has a disagreeable perfume." Copley incorporated gleaming mahogany tabletops into several of his portraits, replicating to great effect the wood's rich, reddish-brown color.
InscriptionsBranded "J.S. INGRAHAM" on rear stay rail, and again, more lightly, on back of inside rear rail, behind the fly leg.
Faint chalk inscription on underside of top: "Mr. Lidle [?}"
Faint chalk inscription on underside of top: "Mr. Lidle [?}"
ProvenanceHistory of ownership: possibly owned originally by J.S. Ingraham, whose name is branded on the piece; Ingraham may also be the maker; by 1928, published as in the collection of Clifford S. Drake; 1956, by descent to his daughter and lent by Miss Mary Drake, Cambridge, Mass., April 16; 1991, Mrs. Mary Drake Glazier, Peterborough, New Hampshire (Accession Date January 22, 1992)