Lot 93: Federal Mahogany Card Table

Federal Mahogany Card TableThe carving attributed to Samuel McIntire, Salem, 1805-1810This card table is nearly identical to a mahogany card table with carving attributed to Samuel McIntire (1757-1811) in the collection of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley that is illustrated in Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style by Dean Lahikainen. Representing his work after 1805, both tables prominently display centered on the rail a lavishly-carved and oversized basket of fruit and flowers, McIntire's signature ornament, which he rendered with a ribbed melon as the most prominent piece of fruit and bunches of grapes at the sides. Following his common practice, he elongated the basket to fit the table rail and oriented it tilting toward the viewer, who would have been looking at it from above. McIntire was carving baskets of this type up until the end of his life, as indicated by a September 21, 1810 receipt charging the cabinetmaker William Hook $4 for ""4 baskets."" McIntire also ornamented these tables with carved edges of the top, acanthus carved rounded corners, and delicate reeded legs. They are further finished with carefully selected vibrantly figured veneers on the rail. A third virtually identical table from a private collection is illustrated as a ""Masterpiece"" in The New Fine Points of Furniture by Albert Sack. ________________________________________________ Published by the Peabody Essex Museum and distributed by the University Press of New England, 2007, figs. 4-115 and 4-116, pp. 152-3. Ibid, p. 153. See Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture, New York, 1993, p. 292.