Rhode Island, 1786-1793, bears John Townsend's paper label to the inside of the drawer, stop-fluted legs, Chinoiserie "moongate" stretchers, 26-3/4 x 36-3/4 x 34-1/2 in.

Provenance: A Newport, Rhode Island family; Christie's, New York, NY, "Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts", October 8, 1998, lot 54, for $62,500; Private Virginia Collection; The Levison & Cullen Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, May 2012 (accompanied by copy of receipt and 2015 appraisal); Estate of Richard and Shirley Roberts, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Literature: Morrison H. Heckscher, John Townsend, Newport Cabinetmaker, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, pp. 148-9, cat. no. 34; this table is included in the Yale University Rhode Island Furniture Archive, where it is listed as RIF 1400.

Exhibited: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "John Townsend, Newport Cabinetmaker", New York, NY, May 6-September 25, 2005.

Note: Surviving tables from this group are few, with just a handful known, and only six with straight pierced Chinoiserie “moongate” cross stretchers. Just three of these tables bear his label: the table offered here, one at the Winterthur Museum, Library & Garden, and a third in the collection of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts in Boston.

Originally one of a pair, the mate to this table was in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland that sold at Sotheby's New York, January 19, 2002, lot 56, now in a private collection.

The other two tables with "moongate" stretchers are at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Preservation Society of Newport County.

In his catalog for the "John Townsend" exhibition, Morrison Heckscher indicates that the Pembroke table was John Townsend's favorite form in the stop-fluted style.

For related examples, see Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640-1820 (1954), p. 84, cat. no. 56; Edwin J. Hipkiss, Eighteenth-Century American Arts, The M. and M. Karolik Collection... (1941), pp. 124-5, cat. no. 66; Nancy E. Richards and Nancy Goyne Evans, New England Furniture at Winterthur, Queen Anne and Chippendale Periods (1997), pp. 264-5, cat. no. 138; one in the collection of the Colonial Society of America, illustrated in Michael Moses, Master Craftsmen of Newport, The Townsends and Goddards (1984), p. 80, figs. 2.8 and 2.8a; Clement E. Conger et al, Treasures of State, Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State (1991), pp. 186-7, cat. no., 97; and a table sold at Sotheby's, New York, NY, "The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland", January 19, 2002, lot 56.