Dressing Table Maker: Unknown

1760–80

American Decorative Arts

By appointment, Hume Furniture Study

The robust carving on this dressing table and its matching high chest is some of the finest found on rococo-style colonial furniture. The carver is sometimes referred to as the Garvan carver. This suite would have been used either in the bedroom or the best parlor.

Medium

American black walnut, yellow poplar, Atlantic white cedar

Dimensions

30 7/8 × 33 5/16 × 20 3/4 in. (78.5 × 84.6 × 52.7 cm)
other (Case): 31 1/16 × 17 5/8 in. (78.9 × 44.7 cm)

Credit Line

Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Accession Number

1930.2001

Geography

Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Culture

American

Period

18th century

Classification

Furniture

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
This dressing table and its matching high chest (1930.2000) have a history of ownership by Henry Wynkoop (1737-1816) and his wife Susanna Wanshaer Wynkoop (d. 1776), who were married in 1761, of Bucks County, Pa. in Wynkoop's will, dated 7 October 1813, he bequeathed to his daughter Christina several objects including his "black walnut chest with drawers, dressing table & chairs."(1) Christina Wynkoop (1763-1841) married Dr. Reading Beatty (1757-1831) in 1786, and according to tradition the objects passed to their daughter Mary (b. 1798). Mary Beatty married the Reverend Robert Steel (1794-1862) of Abingdon, Pa., and was still living in 1873. By tradition, the objects passed to her daughter Mary (b. 1839), who married Dr. Samuel D. Harvey of Jenkintown, Pa., in 1863. Objects then passed to their daughter in the fifth generation, Mary Steel Harvey (b. 1864), of Baltimore, Md. Miss Harvey sold the dressing table and high chest to dealer Henry V. Weil, New York, possibly in 1925; Weil sold the pair to Francis P. Garvan, New York. Gift in 1930 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.
Bibliography
  • Handbook of the Collections, exh. cat. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 90, ill
  • Gerald W. R. Ward, American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1988), 195, 226–27, 283, no. 116, ill
  • Charles F. Montgomery, "Francis P. Garvan: He Would Educate the Nation," Arts in Virginia 19 (Spring 1979), 15
  • Charles F. Montgomery, "Regional Preferences and Characteristics in American Decorative Artts: 1750-1800," Antiques 109, no. 6 (June 1976), 1204, fig. 7
  • Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E. Kane, eds., American Art: 1750–1800 Towards Independence, exh. cat. (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976), 60, fig. 34
  • Charles F. Montgomery, "1776–How America Really Looked: Furniture," American Art Journal 7, no. 1 (May 1975), 59, ill
  • "American Arts and the American Experience," Museum News 53, no. 3 (November 1974), 39
  • Robert Bishop, How to Know American Antique Furniture (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973), 65, fig. 69
  • Meyric R. Rogers, "Garvan Furniture at Yale," Connoisseur Year Book, 1960 (1960), 59, fig. 12
  • R. T. Haines Halsey and Elizabeth Tower, The Homes of Our Ancestors as Shown in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1935), 69–70, fig. 54
  • Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin 2, no. 4 (December 1930), ill. cover, ill
  • Wallace Nutting, Furniture Treasury, 1st ed., 3 vols. (Framingham, Mass.: Old American Company Publishers, 1928–33), n.p., no. 427
  • Charles O. Cornelius, Early American Furniture (New York: Century Co., 1926), pl. XXVIII
  • "Henry V. Weil advertisement," Antiques 7, no. 6 (June 1925), 303, ill
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

dressing tables

Inscriptions

The modern "H. G. BARNES / 100 / 6 DIST PA" in a circle appears on the underside of one of the modern lids to the new compartments in the wide drawer; there is a modern drawing on the underside of the other lid.

Technical metadata and APIs

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