Card table

Object/Artifact

-

Saco Museum

Name/Title

Card table

Entry/Object ID

1950.1.16A

Description

One of a pair of card tables, square with an elliptical front and serpentine ends. The left rear leg swings out to support the top leaf. The outer edges of the top are decorated with a zig-zag pattern string inlay. The front and side rails have the same patterned inlay along its top and bottom edges. The front rail is decorated with a central inlaid mahogany oval on a contrasting ground of tiger maple. The square tapered legs have inlaid ovals at tops with bands of stringing at the cuff.

Made/Created

Date made

1809 - 1816

Dimensions

Height

27-1/2 in

Width

36 in

Depth

16-1/2 in

Material

mahogany, birch, pine, curly maple and rosewood veneer, hickory

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Object Label

Label

Card Table (one of a pair), 1806-1816 Saco, attributed to the shop of Joshua Cumston and David Buckminster mahogany, curly maple and rosewood veneer, birch, pine, hickory (hinge pin) John S. Locke Collection, gift of the estate of Almira Locke McArthur

Label Type

Cultural/Historical Context

Label

In the early 19th century, card playing became more socially acceptable for all classes of society, partly because of a decline in the influence of traditional Protestant morality. People indulged in this newly popular passion at home, in assembly houses, and in taverns. Those who could afford it purchased pairs of special tables for card playing for their homes so they could host fashionable card parties, which took place in the early afternoon or in the evening after dinner. Other games were played on card tables as well, including backgammon and chess. Almira McArthur, the donor of this pair of tables, noted they had been inherited from the Tucker family. Her grandmother, Marcia Tucker Cleaves, could have inherited them from either her father-in-law Daniel Cleaves, or her father Jonathan Tucker. If they belonged to Cleaves, they could have been two of the "4 mahogany card tables" listed in his 1818 probate inventory with a value of $24.