An eighteenth-century sideboard table

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1997 by Frank L. Horton, Sally Gant

The carved walnut sideboard table shown in Plates I and Ia remained in the house for which it was made for more than two centuries until, in the 1980s, it was loaned to the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It came into the museums permanent collection in 1993.

Only in 1982 did Luke Beckerdite, then a research associate at the museum,(1) come to suspect that the table had been designed and made in Virginia rather than England, which had long been the prevailing opinion. Beckerdite carefully compared its construction and carving to similar features found in the interior woodwork of several eighteenth-century Virginia a houses, and he did considerable archival research before concluding that the table should be attributed to the workshop of the master builder William Buckland.(2) Beckerdite not only uncovered the story of its design and manufacture but also established the table as a major determinant in the constantly changing perceptions of southern decorative arts and those who created them.

Buckland's name as a master builder and architect has long been associated with several of the most remarkable eighteenth-century dwellings in Virginia and Maryland, including Gunston Hall (built c. 1753-1759) in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the Matthias Hammond House (built 1774-1778; now the Hammond-Harwood House) in Annapolis, Maryland. Born and trained as a joiner in Oxford, England, Buckland came to the Colonies in 1755, indentured for four years to Thomson Mason (1733-1785) of Fairfax County. Masons brother George (1725-1792) was then building his grand house Gunston Hall, and Buckland was engaged to direct the carpenters and joiners working on the house, both inside and out. In 1759 George Mason provided Buckland with an impressive recommendation, stating, "I think [him] a complete Master of the Carpenter's & Joiners [business] both in Theory & Practice."(3) Among the men whom Buckland supervised was the carver William Bernard Sears, and it is to him that the majority of the carving at Gunston Hall has been credited.

By 1761 Buckland was in Richmond County, Virginia, where he worked for John Tayloe II (1721-1779), a wealthy landowner whose large house, Mount Airy (built 1748-1758), still stands on the banks of the Rappahannock Riven Although the interior was largely destroyed by fire in 1844, surviving fragments offer ample material for comparison to the still extant interiors in Gunston Hall - a comparison that provides evidence that Buckland and Sears also worked at Mount Airy. Two pieces of the original furniture in Mount Airy also survived the fire: the sideboard table and a carved pier table now at Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia.(4)

The study of these two tables and the architectural work associated with them gave rise to two significant points. The first is evidence that the master builder designed and oversaw the execution of furniture specifically designed to complement and enhance its architectural surroundings. Although quite a common practice in England, this appears to be the first documented occurrence in the Colonies. The sideboard table was obviously inspired by the design shown in Figure 1 from Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, a copy of which was listed in the inventory of Buckland's estate.(5) Buckland probably laid out the patterns and designs for both tables, which Sears used to execute the carving.

The second point is the ability to more positively attribute carving to Sears. His work is typified by meticulous detail and by the modeling of many elements on a minute scale, suggesting that he used smaller tools than one would expect. The distinctive nature of his carving is evident in all the work that has been attributed to him, notably in Gunston Hall, Mount Airy, and George Washington's Mount Vernon.

The construction, scale, and design of the table, especially of its aggressively carved feet (see Pl. Ia), demonstrate its architectural nature and thus provide another strong connection to Buckland's shop. The table was assembled with haunched tenons and open mortises pinned with large treenails, while large, wrought finishing nails were used to attach carved elements. All these are the construction methods of a house joiner. Because the airy, pierced legs could not adequately support the heavy marble top, a triangular support was added inside each leg not long after the table was made. For this very reason Chippendale himself recommended in the third edition of the Director that the top be of wood rather than marble.(6) Obviously Tayloe, the original owner of the table, preferred his marble top and took the necessary steps to keep it on the table.

The sideboard table and the related pier table at Colonial Williamsburg are by no means considered today to be representative of the majority of southern furniture, which tends to be "neat and plain." Yet the discoveries about the sideboard have definitely led American decorative arts scholars in new directions, and indeed the table may someday prove to be less of an anomaly than it appears to be today. Seventy-five years ago there was very little to suggest all we now know about southern decorative arts. It makes one wonder what our successors will be saying seventy-five years hence!