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The Franks-Huffnagle family Chippendale or George III mahogany double-pedestal dining table
American or English, late 18th century
American or English, late 18th century
Sold for US$12,500 inc. premium
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The Franks-Huffnagle family Chippendale or George III mahogany double-pedestal dining table
American or English, late 18th century
American or English, late 18th century
Footnotes
Provenance
Colonel Isaac Franks (1759-1822), Philadelphia, married Mary Davison
Sarah Elizabeth Franks (1789-1866), daughter, married John Huffnagle in 1806
George Washington Huffnagle (1821-1895), son
thence by private sale to G.L. Pendleton
acquired at public sale in 1897 by George Arthur Plimpton (1855-1936)
thence by descent to great-grandson
Colonel Isaac Franks was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and fought in the battle of Long Island. After the war, he settled in Philadelphia in the house David Deschler built in 1752 and what is now known as the Deschler-Morris house. It was this house that George Washington and his cabinet occupied during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793.
When Washington occupied the house in 1793, a detailed inventory was taken of its contents. A copy and transcript of that inventory, provided by the National Parks Service which currently oversees the administration of the Deschler-Morris House, identifies two dining tables, one in the first right-hand room and the other in the first left-hand room. The dining table offered here is one of those tables.
In addition to the 1793 inventory, secondary documentation supporting the history of this table include a letter dated August 3, 1886 from George Washington Huffnagle to G.L. Pendleton of Providence, Rhode Island; and a 1904 letter to George Arthur Plimpton from William Kershaw, the director of the Germantown Academy.
American dining tables are extremely rare but without secondary woods, it's impossible to ascertain if this table was made in American or England. Tables of comparable form include one handled by Israel Sack (DAPC # 2003.0195) and one offered at Sotheby's in June, 1988, lot 1887.
























