A Classical Tilt-top Table

Boston, Massachusetts
Circa 1820
Attributed to Isaac Vose & Son with carving by Thomas Wightman

This elegant table is virtually identical to a dining table which descended from Nathan Appleton to his youngest daughter Frances “Fanny” Appleton at or after her marriage to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Of very fine quality, beautiful figured mahogany covers the large round top and is strikingly visible when the top is flipped to a vertical position. The inner face of the round apron rail is veneered with beautifully finished cross-grain mahogany veneer that serves to hide the rail lamination layers. A slightly tapered, six-sided support pillar terminates at the bottom with a distinctive large scale cove molding with a small bead. A thick plinth with three incurvate sides is raised on three scroll-form feet carved by Wightman.

Robert D. Mussey Jr. and Clark Pearce, Rather Elegant Than Showy The Classical Furniture of Isaac Vose (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society 2018), FIG. 138,139, and 140, pages 124 and 125.

Mahogany, (Secondary woods: white ash and chestnut)
Height: 27 ½” Diameter: 52”
C1070