Marble Top Tripod Table

Artist/Maker: Unspecified^[1]

Created: 1785-1790

Origin/Purchase: Top: Paris; base: Philadelphia(?)

Materials: marble, brass, mahogany

Dimensions: 75.6 x 71.1 x 53.3 (29 3/4 x 28 x 21 in.)

Location: Entrance Hall

Provenance: Thomas Jefferson; by purchase to Thomas Jefferson Randolph; by descent to Carolina Ramsay Randolph; by purchase to De Lancey Kountz; by gift to the Yale University Art Gallery; by loan to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation since 1945

Accession Number: 1945-16

Historical Notes: This table top was one of four marble table tops with a brass border that Jefferson brought back to America from France. It is now known if the tops were accompanied by bases. The tilt-top base may have been joined to the top after Jefferson's return in 1790, possibly in Philadelphia. The pillar and slipper feet bear a striking similarity to a Pennsylvania-made stand in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art said to have been designed by Benjamin Franklin.^[2]

Footnotes

1. ↑ This article is based on Stein, Worlds, 306.
2. ↑ Morrison H. Heckseher, American Furniture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 2, Late Colonial Period: The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Random House, 1985), 202.