Tea Table 1765-75

One of the finest ornamentally carved Philadelphia circular tea tables, this example has exceptionally high knees and, on the pillar, an unusually flattened ball. The top is a finely figured board with a delicate, crisply carved rim; the fluting is narrow; the small-scale, naturalistic carving is discreetly placed. Such refined carving could only have been done by someone fully trained in a rigid London apprenticeship system, and Philadelphia in the 1760s was a magnet for just such talented and ambitious craftsmen.