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Lot Essay
Fashioned with a shelf intended as "a convenience for sewing implements," this stand is further embellished with a scalloped gallery around the shelf, which was a favored decorative embellishment on Federal sewing tables, particularly those from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Surviving examples demonstrate the numerous stylistic options available to the fashionable consumer: one or two drawers, reeded, veneered or inlaid stiles and reeded or turned legs. The delicate patterned inlay along the bottom edge of the apron and the crotch-mahogany veneers on the drawer fronts distinguish this table from others, of which more than two dozen are known to exist. The design for the scalloped gallery may have been inspired by design patterns. Hepplewhite illustrated a scalloped gallery on top of a cupboard-on-stand (The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (3rd ed., London, 1794), pl. 89) while Ince and Mayhew devised a rococo design for a lady's dressing table shelf with a pierced undulating gallery (The Universal System of Household Furniture (London, 1762), plate XXXVIII).
Related examples include one at Winterthur Museum (Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966), p. 400); one in the collection of Historic New England (Brock Jobe, Portsmouth Furniture: Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast (Hanover, NH, 1993), p. 269-270); one at Historic Deerfield (Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (New York, 1976), p. 128); the Chipstone Foundation (Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (Madison, 1984), pp. 378-379); one sold Christie's New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27-28, 1995, lot 1173.
Portsmouth owners, perhaps more frequently than those in any other regional center, branded their furniture with their names. The brand underneath the galleried shelf refers to its owner, Matthew Sheafe Marsh (1773-1814), who was a Portsmouth merchant and ship-owner. A pair of chairs also bearing Marsh's brand are in the collection of the U.S. State Department, illustrated in Clement E. Conger and Alexandra W. Rollins, Treasures of State, Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York, 1991), no. 37; a single chair attributed to Robert Harrold of Portsmouth also bears his stamp and is in the collection of Historic New England, illustrated in Jobe, cat. no. 87. The stamped brass hardware bears the mark of its maker, Thomas Hands and William Jenkins of Birmingham. Several examples of their work survive on Portsmouth furniture (see Jobe, cat. nos. 10, 13, 21 and 23). For a more in-depth discussion of these work tables, see Jobe, pp. 269-270, cat. no. 66.
Surviving examples demonstrate the numerous stylistic options available to the fashionable consumer: one or two drawers, reeded, veneered or inlaid stiles and reeded or turned legs. The delicate patterned inlay along the bottom edge of the apron and the crotch-mahogany veneers on the drawer fronts distinguish this table from others, of which more than two dozen are known to exist. The design for the scalloped gallery may have been inspired by design patterns. Hepplewhite illustrated a scalloped gallery on top of a cupboard-on-stand (The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (3rd ed., London, 1794), pl. 89) while Ince and Mayhew devised a rococo design for a lady's dressing table shelf with a pierced undulating gallery (The Universal System of Household Furniture (London, 1762), plate XXXVIII).
Related examples include one at Winterthur Museum (Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture, The Federal Period (New York, 1966), p. 400); one in the collection of Historic New England (Brock Jobe, Portsmouth Furniture: Masterworks from the New Hampshire Seacoast (Hanover, NH, 1993), p. 269-270); one at Historic Deerfield (Dean A. Fales, Jr., The Furniture of Historic Deerfield (New York, 1976), p. 128); the Chipstone Foundation (Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Furniture at Chipstone (Madison, 1984), pp. 378-379); one sold Christie's New York, The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eddy Nicholson, January 27-28, 1995, lot 1173.
Portsmouth owners, perhaps more frequently than those in any other regional center, branded their furniture with their names. The brand underneath the galleried shelf refers to its owner, Matthew Sheafe Marsh (1773-1814), who was a Portsmouth merchant and ship-owner. A pair of chairs also bearing Marsh's brand are in the collection of the U.S. State Department, illustrated in Clement E. Conger and Alexandra W. Rollins, Treasures of State, Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (New York, 1991), no. 37; a single chair attributed to Robert Harrold of Portsmouth also bears his stamp and is in the collection of Historic New England, illustrated in Jobe, cat. no. 87. The stamped brass hardware bears the mark of its maker, Thomas Hands and William Jenkins of Birmingham. Several examples of their work survive on Portsmouth furniture (see Jobe, cat. nos. 10, 13, 21 and 23). For a more in-depth discussion of these work tables, see Jobe, pp. 269-270, cat. no. 66.