Two-Fold Design: The Oval Gate-Leg Table as Household Commodity in Seventeenth-Century New York

This post is the fourth in a series featuring student papers from “Material Life in America,” a course taught by WPAMC director Dr. J. Ritchie Garrison. The papers address objects with connections to New York in the collection of the Winterthur Museum. Each student began by closely examining his or her object, and over the course of the semester situated the object in increasingly broad contexts of production and use. For many of the students, these projects were a first foray into the world of material culture and Winterthur’s collections, and yielded surprising and challenging results.

Gate-leg trestle table. Probably New York, c. 1660-1700. Soft maple, maple, butternut, cherry, oak. Winterthur Museum, Gift of Henry Francis du Pont, 1958.0527.

Although its maker and provenance are unknown, this gate-leg table with a trestle base is an innovative example of Anglo-Dutch design in the William and Mary style. In its fold-able form, the table (Winterthur Museum 1958.0527) draws upon English craftsmanship traditions and aesthetic preferences. This analysis interprets seventeenth-century New York and New England probate inventories to explore this table’s many previous lives: from its regional construction and international design influences to its daily purpose for dining, work, and leisure. A rare survivor of domestic life in early America, this small and sophisticated table played a dynamic role in conversation with other household furnishings.

Read it here!: Two-Fold Design: The Oval Gate-Leg Table as Household Commodity in Seventeenth-Century New York by Hannah Boettcher, WPAMC class of 2016