Provenance

Two different but equally distinguished histories of ownership have been recorded for this table. In the late nineteenth century, it was in the collection of Dr. William H. Crim of Baltimore, Maryland; it was sold at the auction of Crim's estate in 1903 (Crim 1903, no. 1074; illustrated facing pp. 2, 78). According to the auction catalogue, the table originally belonged to Roger Brooke Taney (1777-1864) of Maryland, who served as Secretary of the Treasury, United States Attorney General, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Taney was born too late to have been the table's original owner, although he may have inherited it. In 1929, R.T.H. Halsey purchased the table on Garvan's behalf in Annapolis, Maryland, for exhibition in the Hammond-Harwood House. Halsey reported that the table's original owner was Dr. Upton Scott (1722-1814) of Annapolis (Halsey to Garvan, May 3, 1929, Halsey file, FPG-AAA; "Purchased in Annapolis by RT Halsey for Harwood House," manuscript list, Hammond-Harwood Loan file, Box 14, FPG-AAA). A pair of side chairs purportedly owned by Scott, acquired by Halsey at the same time, is also in the Art gallery's collection (Kane 1976, no. 145); Garvan's catalogue card states, "These chairs were purchased from the heirs of Upton Scott, uncle of Francis Scott Key. They had always been in the Upton Scott House" (FPG-Y). If Halsey purchased the table from the same Scott descendants as the chairs, they could not have owned it prior to the Crim sale in 1903. Moreover, none of this furniture was in the Upton Scott house in 1929, as it was apparently unfurnished (photograph album, Hammond-Harwood Loan file, Box 14, FPG-AAA). Gift in 1930 to Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.