Fine Classical Gilt, Vert Antique, and Rosewood Caryatid Table
Starting: $20,000
attributed to Duncan Phyfe, 1815-1820, figured rosewood top with brass inlay and satinwood banding, brass inlaid edge, opening to a felt lined playing surface above a gilt bronze mounted and brass inlaid rosewood frieze, carved gilt and vert antique painted caryatid support, back with leaf carved and fluted column supports, on rosewood veneered and bronze mounted base set on carved gilt and vert antique and animal paw feet, with leaf carved knees and brass casters, interior till with early and probably original marbled paper lining, poplar, ash, and white pine secondary, 29-1/4 x 35-3/4 x 18 in.Note: This rare table is illustrated and discussed in McInnis and Leath, ?Beautiful Specimens, Elegant Patterns: New York Furniture for the Charleston Market, 1810-1840? (Chipstone, 1996) p. 149-150. McInnis and Leath note that it is one from a pair that descended in the Ravenel-Frost family. ÿBanks family members recall William purchasing the table from his Cousin, Olive Pringle Brown, who also lived in Newnan. It was said to have come from the Pringle mansion in Charleston. Among Charleston?s most prominent families, the Ravenel, Frost and Pringle families, ÿresting a web or connections and of possible histories for this table. It is also illustratedÿin Katherine Gross Farnham, ?Living with Antiques: The Gordon-Banks House in the Georgia Piedmont,? The MagazineÿAntiques,ÿ102, no. 3 (September 1972): p. 444., and in Fairbanks,ÿAmerican Furniture 1620 to the Presentÿ(New York 1981) p. 266.ÿA closely related pair of caryatid card tables attributed to Phyfe were formerly in the Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art and the Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and were sold at Christie’s, New York, September 25, 2013, lot #101 for $255,000. One of these tables is illustrated in Peter Kenny, Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York, page 85, figure 95, with an attribution to Duncan Phyfe. However, the present table is distinguished by its expensive rosewood veneers and satinwood banding that are not found on the Westerveltÿpair.; Provenance: By descent through the Ravenel, Frost, and Pringle families of Charleston, South Carolina. William purchased the table from his cousin Olive Pringle Brown, who lived in Newnan, probably in 1968/1969. The Estate of William N. Banks, Jr., Newnan, Georgia