Rhode Island gateleg tables

Magazine Antiques, May, 2004 by Erik K. Gronning, Dennis Carr

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To date only five other tables are known with legs that have a turning profile identical to those on the table in Plate II. All of them are made primarily of maple, and all are smaller than the table in Plate II. The first is the table in Figure 5. The whereabouts of three tables is unknown (see Pl. VII and Figs. 3, 4), although the one in Figure 4 was once owned by Mrs. C. McGregory Wells Jr. of Stafford Springs, Connecticut. (10) The Wells collection was donated to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, but for some reason the table never arrived at the museum and is currently missing. The last table appeared in the August 2003 Americana sale at Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Pl. VIII). It is the best preserved of the group, retaining most of its original black paint; and, except for the addition of castors in the nineteenth century, it is in excellent condition. A unique characteristic of this table is that most if not all the turned members are laminated. It is not clear why the furniture maker chose to use laminated maple at the time when solid maple of large diameter should have been quite plentiful.

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The refinement and detail of the turnings indicate that the maker of these tables was very skilled. Interestingly, of the hundreds of colonial Rhode Island furniture makers documented in an ongoing study at the Yale University Art Gallery, only a very small percentage is listed specifically as turners. No turners are listed in Newport at the time this group of tables was made. Only a handful are mentioned in Providence and in the more rural area of western Rhode Island.

The almost mechanized process of turning using a stationary lathe powered by a foot pedal resulted in a variety of products remarkably faithful to the turning profile chosen. It is the search for these other products and more Rhode Island gatelegs with different turning profiles that will spur future research. Among the questions to be asked is whether there was more than one craftsman or school producing turnings like these, perhaps not only in Rhode Island but in nearby regions of Connecticut or Long Island as well. Also, are there other extant architectural elements that can forge a more conclusive link to Rhode Island? These are the questions we will consider in a future article.

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We would like to give our heartfelt thanks to Alan Anderson, Ronald Bourgeault, Patricia E. Kane, Richard Kenney, S. Dean and Frank Levy, Jonathan Prown, Robert F. Trent, and Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vogel III for their help and inspiration.

(1) The Concord Museum: Decorative Arts from a New England Collection, ed. David F. Wood (Concord Museum, Concord, Massachusetts, 1996), p. 44, n. 3.

(2) Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition, A History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England (1979; Antique Collectors' Club, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984), pp. 301-311. See also Reinier Baarsen et al., Courts and Colonies: The William and Mary Style in Holland, England, and America (Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, 1988), pp. 62-79.