Very Fine and Rare Federal Inlaid and Figured Mahogany Five-Legged Games Table, Attributed to Michael Allison, New York, circa 1795

With its inlaid ovals on the frame rails, stringing on the top leaf, vertically shaped veneers, and curved frontrails formed from vertically laminated pieces of wood, the present card table offers a classical Federal period design associated with New York. Card tables featuring the Prince of Wales feather inlay, found here on the central panel, are often attributed to the New York cabinetmaker, Michael Allison (1773-1855), who used the motif of the pembroke table bearing his label (see The Magazine Antiques, August 1947, p.85). A contemporary and neighbor of Duncan Phyfe, Allison worked in New York City between 1800 and 1847 at a cabinet shop located at Vesey Street.

The Prince of Wales feather motif was adapted from a chair design illustrated in plate 1 of The Cabinet-Maker and the Upholsterer’s Guide (London, 1794) by George Hepplewhite. During the Federal period, the motif came into favor in New York, where cabinetmakers used it primarily as a carved motif and more rarely as an inlay. Similar Prince of Wales feather inlays are found on other New York furniture: a sofa sold at Sotheby's, New York, Important Americana Furniture, Folk Art and Decorations, October 15, 1999, lot 58; two sofas with a history of ownership in the Livingston family of New York (see The Magazine Antiques, May 1997, p. 716); and on a card table illustrated in The Work of Many Hands: Card Tables in Federal America by Benjamin Hewitt, Gerald Ward, and Patricia Kane (New Haven, 1982, no 40). Federal chairs with the Prince of Wales feather are in the Kaufman Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Winterthur Museum.