Provenance

Probably Sarah Wilcox (née Sarah Stevens, 1729–1815) and Silas Wilcox (1719–1755), Killingworth, Conn. [see note 1]; by descent to their daughter Grace Wilcox (née Grave Wilcox, 1755–1836) and Joseph Wilcox (1747–1840), Killingworth, Conn.; by descent to their daughter Abigail Parker (née Abigail Wilcox, 1793–1868) and Jonathan Parker (1786–1859), Old Saybrook, Conn.; by descent to their daughter Mary Minerva Evarts (née Mary Minerva Parker, 1820–1887), Guilford, Conn. [see note 2]; by descent to their daughter Georgiana “Anna” Parker Banks (née Georgiana "Anna" Parker Evarts, 1853–1936), Fairfield, Conn., by 1880 [see note 3]. Mary Allis (1899–1987), Southport, Conn., by 1967 [see note 4]; sold to Richard “Dick” Charles Albright (1939–2019), Wayland, Mass., before 1987; given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2017

Note 1: An inscription on the table by Anna Evarts and dated July 13, 1880, notes that it was owned by "great-grandmother Wilcox," but the table is at least a generation older. It was probably first owned by the parents of Joseph—Rebecca Wilcox (née Rebecca Hurd, 1703–1770) and Joseph Wilcox, Sr., (1694–1779), who were married in Killingworth, Conn., in 1724—or the parents of Grace—Sarah Wilcox (née Sarah Stevens, 1729–1815) and Silas Wilcox (1719–1755), who were married in Killingworth, Conn., in 1747. The style of the table and the fact it descended in the female line of the family suggests it was made around the time of the latter marriage.

Note 2: In 1967 the table was described as having been purchased from a Guilford family and had always been used as a marriage breakfast table (John T. Kirk, Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, exh. cat. [Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 1967], 90, no. 155). In 2022 a nineteenth-century inscription by Anna Evarts was discovered on the underside of the top that records a history in nearby Killingworth. Evarts's mother was born in Killingworth but married a man from Guilford and settled there, hence later generations associated the table with Guilford.

Note 3: Evarts inscribes the table in 1880, prior to her marriage to Henry William Banks (1841–1896) in 1884. Their only child, Frank Garfield Banks (1885–1927), predeceases Anna and the table possibly descends to their daughter-in-law Eva May Banks (née Eva May Purdy, 1884–1973), Fairfield, Conn., or to their grandson Franklin Edgar Banks (1920–2002), Fairfield, Conn.

Note 4: Allis owned the table by 1967 when she lent it to the exhibition "Connecticut Furniture: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries," at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., November 3–December 17, 1967.