American Gothic Revival Rosewood and Marble-Top Center Table

ca. 1845, after a design by Alexander Jackson Davis, and probably executed by Alexander Roux, New York, the period hexagonal marble top with a reeded edge, over a conforming apron with ripple molding along its top edge, and a scalloped lower edge with pendant finial with a ball end, supported by cluster-column posts on a base with trefoil feet, this example retaining its tracery hanging lanterns between columns.
h. 31", w. 36-5/8", d. 36-5/8"

Notes: The design for this iconic table is attributed to the New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892) who is noted for designing the famous country villa "Kenwood" located outside of Albany, New York and built in 1842 for industrialist Joel Rathbone. An illustration of the drawing room at Kenwood is featured in Andrew Jackson Downing's book The Architecture of Country Houses and shows an example of this Gothic table as its centerpiece. The present table is part of an elite group of American Gothic Revival furniture, the most notable of which is a table that was purchased for the Davis-designed Gothic villa Belmead, in Powhatan County, Virginia, about 1845. That table sold in these galleries in 2000 and is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Other examples of this form are in the collections of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia (The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection), The Detroit Institute of Arts, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In very good refinished, restored and French-polished condition. The table is sturdy, stable and solid. All drop finials, fretwork lanterns and ribbon molding is present. The marble top appears to be original. It exhibits some customary small nicks and chips to the perimeter edges. There are old iron braces at the joints on the underside of the base. One or two of the bottom most molded "feet", boards about one-inch thick, appear to be replaced. Casters are of the period and probably original. The screw plate on one has been scrubbed and an additional washer added.