BLACK WALNUT DROP LEAF DINING TABLE
CABRIOLE LEGS WITH CARVED, TRIFED FEET
EASTERN VIRGINIA, PENNINSULA OR NORTHERN NECK
CIRCA 1760 – 1780
28 ½” Tall 42” Deep 18 ½” Wide Closed 49” Open
Commentary: This table descended directly through the Hogge (Hogg) Family of York and Gloucester Counties. Members of the family arrived in Virginia as early as 1650 and by 1678 George Hogg had established his home in Petsworth Parish of Gloucester County. George Hogg was a sawyer by trade and had at least four children. Hogge descendents have lived in the area continuously since the seventeenth century and this table was acquired from a member of the family’s ninth generation. This table may have belonged to Frances Hogg (c.1787-1855), a daughter of Richard Hogg, Jr. and Frances Hogg. Her estate inventory includes “1 walnut table …$3.00” which was among the higher value items listed.
The table represents a fine example of the influence of Irish cabinetmakers in Tidewater Virginia during the eighteenth century. While the drop leaf dining table with well defined cabriole legs and shaped feet was a form well known to cabinetmakers in Great Britain and the American colonies, the boldly carved feet represent a distinctively Irish component. An important group of furniture with histories and origins in the Rappahannock River Valley was identified by Ron Hurst of Colonial Williamsburg in his 1997 American Furniture article focusing on this topic. In particular, Hurst identified the base of a chest of drawers from the area with very similar “heavily articulated panel feet” also of black walnut as an example of this influence. While the influence of Irish trained cabinetmakers has long been recognized in Philadelphia furniture, the importance of these artisans in the Virginia tidewater is only just beginning to be understood.
Before the concept was widely accepted that homes should include a specific room reserved for dining, the Virginia gentry furnished their homes with a variety of tables that could be moved and used as the occasion dictated. Drop leaf tables of a relatively large size, such as this fine example, could be used in the center or periphery of virtually any room or hallway for entertaining or for daily dinning. When unneeded, the leaves could be dropped and the table stored easily against a wall.
Condition: The table survives in good structural condition with remnants of an early surface. One barrel joint has been repaired and there is evidence that the hinges were reset at some point. The table retains (at least) one of its original returns.
PRICE: sold
