Collection record · Everyday wonders
Work Table
The collection record classifies this work as furniture and woodwork. It is dated 1800–1825. Recorded culture or place: America, Massachusetts, Boston, 19th century.
Explore the object recordOBJECT RECORD
A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Work Table
- Date
- 1800–1825
- Culture / origin
- America, Massachusetts, Boston, 19th century
- Materials and technique
- maple, brass hardware
- Dimensions
- Overall: 69.9 x 51.5 x 40 cm (27 1/2 x 20 1/4 x 15 3/4 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 1981.75
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
Needlework typically occupied several hours of a well-to-do woman's day. Worktables are compact, lightweight, and therefore portable. Casters permitted one to move the table around a room and to reposition it easily for sewing or writing. The top drawer of this example was designed to hold writing equipment and contains a writing tablet that could be placed at a convenient slant. The second drawer is divided into compartments for sewing equipment. Needlework was stored in a bag below, accessible by pulling its frame out of one of the table's shorter sides. This simple, small table with its slender, tapered legs is decorated with painted landscapes almost certainly copied from engravings. From about 1800–1825 furniture decoration of this kind was taught in schools for proper young ladies of New England.
FOLLOW THE SOURCE
Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Gift of Miss Elizabeth Bartol · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
Open the complete museum record View the open-access policyTHE VISITOR BOOK
What caught your eye?
Opening the visitor book…
