Dressing table

1740-1755

Measurements

29 1/4 in x 34 in x 19 1/2 in

Materials

Mahogany; tulip poplar (backboard), white cedar (drawer bottoms, vertical divider inside case), oak and chestnut (drawer sides)

Credit Line

On loan from Winterthur, bequest of Mrs. Mary Curtis Crowe

Accession Number

1976.116

Inscription

“S. HIGGINS” is branded into the right side of the case; “Wm. CORBIT HOUSE / ODESSA, DELAWARE–1772” is engraved into a metal tag on the upper right corner of the backboard.

Condition Notes

The lower half of the left rear leg is a restoration. The leg brackets and brasses are replacements.

Provenance

The table descended from William Corbit to Sarah Clark Corbit Higgins, who had the side branded with her name. It then passed through her daughter to Sara Corbit Levis and her daughter, Mrs. Earle R. (Mary Curtis) Crowe.

Comments

This dressing table, popularly called a lowboy, may be the one listed in William Corbit's 1818 probate inventory.  He likely acquired it from his parents, married in 1839, who moved to Odessa from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.  Among early construction features, the drawer bottoms are nailed to the undersides of the drawer sides.  The dressing table represents an early use of mahogany, rather than walnut.  The strongest documentation of this furniture form places its likely manufacture in Philadelphia.

Bibliography

“Delaware Furniture from Delaware Houses,” exhibition pamphlet, Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts, April 5–30, 1950, 5.

Sweeney, Grandeur, 115, pl. 8.

Sweeney, “Corbit-Sharp House,” 882, pl. X.

Zimmerman, A Storied Past, 60-61.