Table 1750 - 1790

Curator: Oh, isn't she a beauty! This "Table," created between 1750 and 1790, comes to us from the skilled hands of John Townsend. The piece calls the Art Institute of Chicago home. Editor: My first impression is that it looks rather sturdy, yet possesses an airy elegance, perhaps from its gracefully curving legs. You know, I bet it has some weight to it. Curator: Yes, but observe how Townsend plays with tension! The heaviness you perceive contrasts beautifully with the rococo detailing and almost gives the impression that it is growing upward. There is certainly complexity in such a simple structure. Editor: True. When you see the "paw feet," the carved ball-and-claw motif, you grasp how its material and structure signify a specific sort of social history. Who would have been eating at this table? Where would it have been made, and from what specific timbers? The consumption practices enabled by this particular piece are interesting, if we trace them to the present. Curator: Thinking about past meals had at this table brings a little lump to my throat. Perhaps candlelight glimmering off the wood… a family arguing over politics. Imagining its history feels more real to me than its function, even if, rationally, the material conditions, the wood and the carving, the status all those represent, should tell a story of wealth and privilege. I wonder if that family who owned this was happy? Editor: Happiness may be in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the historian. It is quite fascinating to view something as straightforward as a table, constructed of wood and a product of human labor, that can open up vast reflections and provoke powerful reactions from us, now centuries after it was crafted! Curator: Absolutely, and now, if we turn to the window, you will find there is another piece here…