By ROBERT REED
Auction Exchange Correspondent

In the early days of the American Colonies, affluent citizens tended to import both their furnishings and amusements from England.
Robert Beverly wrote in the early 1700s of his irritation with follow Virginians. “They have all their Wooden Ware from England; their Cabinets, Chairs, Tables, Stools, Chests ... to the Eternal Reproach of their Laziness,” he declared.

During the same historical period, a woman wrote to South Carolina Gazette complaining of men and their gambling. “There is not one night in the week in which they are not engaged with some club or other at the tavern, where they injure their fortunes by gaming in various ways,” she wrote, “ keeping late hours, or rather spending whole nights, sometimes, in these disgraceful and ruinous practices.”

Two things changed as the century unfolded. Cabinet makers of the Colonies began crafting their own card tables, and men brought their card games home for a different social encounter. Card tables began showing up in this country in the 1720s and 1730s, and like those seen earlier in England, they were given a prominent position in the best room of the house by the well-to-do of this country.
“Consider the cabinet making skill involved in the creation of a card table top with a rounded corner recessed for candlesticks and an oval pocket for chips,” notes Nancy Smith, the author of Old Furniture, Understanding the Craftsman’s Art, “the whole accomplished with a single piece of wood.”

Atop these delicate and fashionable tables with carved wood and fine inlays, many an evening was spent playing the likes of whist, loo, fare, and quadrille.

“As the Colonies developed into lively communities, the card table became one criterion of gracious living,” says Lester Margon in Masterpieces of American Furniture. “Even in those days the card table had a special attraction for the prosperous Colonists, who enjoyed games of chance.”

Given the popularity of fine card tables and the heavy competition of the British market, American makers were soon mastering the craft.

Writing of the 1750s to 1780s, Susan Ward observes in The Catalog of American Antiques, “Philadelphia reigned supreme in Colonial cabinet making with Newport, R.I., providing highly respectable competition. The tea tables and card tables produced by their makers echoed the elegant lines of their chairs and case pieces.”

Typically the card table of the time had rounded corners to hold candles for the evening’s entertainment. Dish-like depressions in the surface were sometimes provided for dice, chips or other game pieces. Finally, in some styles, a single drawer held packs of cards.
Usually the top was hinged so that one half folded over the other when not in use. It could be moved from its storage place along a wall into a central location that could accommodate the chairs of players.

George Hepplewhite had advised in his Cabinet-Maker and Upholster’s Guide of 1788 that card tables “may either be square, circular or oval; the inner part is lined with green cloth; the fronts may be enriched with inlaid or painted ornament; the tops also admit great elegance in the same style.

”All of the Hepplewhite styles were produced eventually in the United States, although few oval or circular surfaces gained any popularity.

For the most part Americans favored the more complex shapes of the Federal period which began in the latter 18th century and continued into the early 19th century.

A resurgence of nationalistic pride which followed the War of 1812 led many American card table makers to include very detailed carvings of feathered eagles in their works. In examples at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts the eagle is atop a world globe.

One of the most absorbing descriptions of a classic American card table was a commentary by Frances Clary Morse published in 1902.
“The exquisite Chippendale card table... is not only beautiful in itself, but it frames what is a monument to the industry of the frail young girls who embroidered the top, and to the good housekeeping of its owners for 120 odd years,” he wrote.

“The original pearl counters still lie in the oval pools hollowed out for them in the mahogany frame.”