Worktable
Artist
Anthony Gabriel Quervelle
(French, 1789 - 1856)
Date1825-1835
MediumMahogany, yellow-poplar, pine, rosewood, glass, brass, and fabric
DimensionsOverall: 30 3/8 x 23 x 16 7/8in. (77.2 x 58.4 x 42.9cm)
ClassificationsFURNISHINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase with funds from the Sarah T. Norris Fund, in honor of Carol E. Gordon, Curator of Decorative Arts, 1974-1983
Terms
Object number83.15
On View
On viewCollections
Copyright<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>.
Label TextIn the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, finely crafted worktables with fitted drawers and compartments were elegant and popular additions to the furnishings of stylish American interiors. The earliest worktable forms were light in proportion and appointed with ornately pleated and trimmed textile bags. By the 1820s the French Empire and Restoration styles-with their curved profiles and larger dimensions-had transformed this specialized kind of table. In Philadelphia, worktables increased in size and became more architectural in their configurations, and textile bags disappeared.
The crotched-grained, mahogany-veneered fan shape on this Quervelle worktable is emphasized by the crossbanded-veneer border. Rounded corners, a convex drawer front, concave sides of the platform, and gadrooning complete the graceful integration.
