Norfolk, Virginia, 1790-1810
Mahogany with yellow pine and soft maple
Catalog no. 76
The powerful influence of the New York City furniture trade on cabinetmaking in coastal southern cities during the decades after the Revolution is especially evident in this five-legged card table from Norfolk, Virginia. Between 1790 and 1810, Norfolk card tables were executed in this standard New York format more often than in any other. The Norfolk tables feature nearly all of the same structural and organizational elements found on the New York prototypes—rectangular tops with indented ovolo corners, hinged fifth legs, rear leaf-edge tenons intended to combat warping of the leaves, and laminated cores behind the ovolo corner rails. The division of the front rails into five panels defined by stringing and often augmented with pictorial inlays also followed the New York pattern. There is little doubt that the overall configuration came to Virginia in the form of imported New York tables or via immigrant craftsmen, both resources readily at hand in Federal Norfolk.
Secondary woods set the Norfolk tables apart from northern prototypes‚ as does the way the dark inlays on the legs and rails were created. The black stringing and detailing were formed by incising lines into solid wood and filling them with mastic or pitch. The use of such inlay techniques is rarely encountered on other American furniture.