Exceptional Queen Anne Carved and Figured Mahogany Tray-Top Tea Table with C-scrolls and Candleslides, Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1755

underside of slide rail bears small paper label with typed inscription S.L63.14 / Mrs. du Pont, broken at skirt one leg and leg square replaced.

Margaret Wilson Lewis du Pont, Wilmington, Delaware.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Art from American Collections, March-April 1963;
New York, Bernard and S. Dean Levy, An American Tea Party: An Exhibition of Colonial Tea and Breakfast Tables 1715-1783, November 1988.

James Biddle, American Art From American Collections, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1963), p. 45, no. 80; 
An American Tea Party, Colonial Tea and Breakfast Tables 1715-1783, (New York: Bernard and S. Dean Levy, Inc., 1988), p. 22, no. 14.

Refinished, stops on slides replaced, one leg broken out and leg square replaced.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

With its exceptionally delicate poise, highly skilled modeling, and elegant design, this dynamic tea table represents the most sophisticated form of Queen Anne tea tables made in Boston from about 1740 to the Revolution. It is fashioned with a top with a molded rim to secure a tea service, an elaborately scalloped apron rhythmically shaped into a series of bold cyma scrolls, slender tapering cabriole legs with C-scroll brackets and crisp pad feet. In constructing it in the latest London taste, its skilled maker was clearly inspired by a tea table design executed by John Linnell in circa 1760 and published in Miscellaneous Collection of Designs (London, 1800). Linnell appears to have based his design on Chinese tables with rectangular tops, cyma skirts and cabriole legs imported to England from the seventeenth century.

This tea table can be distinguished from comparable tables by the acanthus carving on the knees and lack of a beaded molding applied to the frame above the juncture of the skirt. It is one of a small group of related tea tables fitted with candleslides. One has a history of descent in the Shoemaker and Williams families.¹ Another was owned by Mary Revere, daughter of Paul Revere.² A third example was owned by Levi Lincoln, Governor of Massachusetts from 1808-9.³ A fourth example at Colonial Williamsburg was originally owned by Reverend Daniel Shute (1722-1802) of Hingham, Massachusetts.⁴ Another with a history in the Ladd family of Portsmouth, New Hampshire sold in these rooms, Important Americana from the Collection of Diane and Norman Bernstein, the Lindens, Washington, D.C., January 22, 2006, sale 8160, lot 54.

Other tea tables with a similar skirt profile but lacking the paired C-scroll brackets include one with a history of descent in the Bradlee and Croninshield families of Salem, one owned by Sarah Bradlee Fulton (1740-1836) of Boston, and one at the State Department owned by the John Hooper family of Marblehead, Massachusetts.⁵

¹ See Elizabeth Stillinger, American Antiques: The Hennage Collection, Williamsburg, 1990.
² See Israel Sack Inc., American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection, Volume VI, P4574, pp. 1540-1.
³ Albert Sack, New Fine Points of Furniture, New York, 1993, p. 266.
⁴ See Barry Greenlaw, New England Furniture at Williamsburg, 1974, no. 129.
⁵ See Sack, Volume IV, P3757, p. 975, Paul Revere’s Boston, Boston, 1975, no. 122, and Sack, Volume IX, p. 168.