Federal Sideboard Table1810–183034 7/8 × 26 × 20"Paint on wood, with brass knobEva and Morris Feld Folk Art Acquisition Fund1981.12.60Small table with grain and sponge painted decoration; single centered drawer and serpentine front top and backboard; square tapering legs. Painted decoration includes 2 yellow verticle ovals on brown ground flanking drawer with horizontal oval around brass knob on yellow ground with black stippling. "Inset." apron grain painted. Legs painted yellow to apron, black separation, stained, stained brown to feet.1531991560Artist unidentifiedFurniture/FurnishingsThe American Folk Art Museum believes this work to be in the public domain. http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20167United StatesTreasures of Folk Art: Museum of American Folk ArtThree Dimensional WorkseMuseum - Collection HighlightsThis country table was painted to simulate the fine woods and medallion insets found in high style furniture of the federal period (This table's strong resemblance to a high style piece from Portsmouth, NH c. 1810 (see xeerox) and it's relation to other painted and decorated pieces of the area suggests a possible NH origin) Urban styles took time to reach rural areas, but tended to last longer than in the cities, accounting for discrepancies in dates between high style furniture and country counterpartsSmall table with grain and sponge painted decoration; single centered drawer and serpentine front top and backboard; square tapering legs. Painted decoration includes 2 yellow verticle ovals on brown ground flanking drawer with horizontal oval around brass knob on yellow ground with black stippling. "Inset." apron grain painted. Legs painted yellow to apron, black separation, stained, stained brown to feet.Two primary reasons are most often cited to explain why so much furniture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is painted. The first is that paint protected the surface of the furniture and often disguised the fact that several different woods were employed in a single piece. The routine use of primary and secondary woods was partly a measure of expediency—less expensive woods were used in areas that were not visible—and partly a response to function, as more durable woods were chosen for areas of highest use. The second reason was a desire to imitate and interpret urban high-style fashions in the inexpensive medium of paint. What has been more recently recognized, however, is that such decorative painting was also expressive of regional taste.
This small federal sideboard table features the functional aspects of such decorative painting but most strongly conveys a sense of aspiration in both painted decoration and construction. It displays the slender lines of federal-era furniture and combines a shaped backsplash with a cyma-curved overhanging tabletop in imitation of a drop-leaf table, though no parts move. The front panel under the “drop leaf” is deeper than the side, for purely ornamental purposes, as it has received the greatest painted embellishment. A symmetrical arrangement of Adam-inspired ovals and rectangles gives the appearance of inlays of birch, satinwood, and other expensive veneers. The overwhelming impression in both paint and construction is therefore one of imitation, albeit through the use of imaginative rather than literally imitative grain painting.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Federal Sideboard Table," in American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 314.http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20167http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster20167http://nodes.emuseum.com/BU1BGBAG/apis/emuseum/network/v1/vocabularies/termMaster2016718101830 1981 12 6 This country table was painted to simulate the fine woods and medallion insets found in high style furniture of the federal period (This table's strong resemblance to a high style piece from Portsmouth, NH c. 1810 (see xeerox) and it's relation to other painted and decorated pieces of the area suggests a possible NH origin) Urban styles took time to reach rural areas, but tended to last longer than in the cities, accounting for discrepancies in dates between high style furniture and country counterpartsSmall table with grain and sponge painted decoration; single centered drawer and serpentine front top and backboard; square tapering legs. Painted decoration includes 2 yellow verticle ovals on brown ground flanking drawer with horizontal oval around brass knob on yellow ground with black stippling. "Inset." apron grain painted. Legs painted yellow to apron, black separation, stained, stained brown to feet.Two primary reasons are most often cited to explain why so much furniture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is painted. The first is that paint protected the surface of the furniture and often disguised the fact that several different woods were employed in a single piece. The routine use of primary and secondary woods was partly a measure of expediency—less expensive woods were used in areas that were not visible—and partly a response to function, as more durable woods were chosen for areas of highest use. The second reason was a desire to imitate and interpret urban high-style fashions in the inexpensive medium of paint. What has been more recently recognized, however, is that such decorative painting was also expressive of regional taste.
This small federal sideboard table features the functional aspects of such decorative painting but most strongly conveys a sense of aspiration in both painted decoration and construction. It displays the slender lines of federal-era furniture and combines a shaped backsplash with a cyma-curved overhanging tabletop in imitation of a drop-leaf table, though no parts move. The front panel under the “drop leaf” is deeper than the side, for purely ornamental purposes, as it has received the greatest painted embellishment. A symmetrical arrangement of Adam-inspired ovals and rectangles gives the appearance of inlays of birch, satinwood, and other expensive veneers. The overwhelming impression in both paint and construction is therefore one of imitation, albeit through the use of imaginative rather than literally imitative grain painting.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Federal Sideboard Table," in American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 314.