  About the Artwork
  
  
  A carpenter trained in a late-medieval English woodworking tradition made this table around 1670 in Massachusetts. The massive pine top is a single board more than ten feet long. It rests on trestles at either end connected by a long stretcher. Two decorative turned spindles near the center of the stretcher were probably added in the early 1700s to provide extra support when the top began to sag. The scale of the table suggests it was probably made for a tavern or other public space.

Very few examples survive of large-scale public furniture made in New England in the 1600s. Antiquarians discovered this table in the early 1900s in the attic of a tavern in East Medway, Massachusetts. Tradition says George Washington ate at that tavern in July 1775 while traveling to Boston, so those early collectors preserved the table for its possible presidential association.
  
  
  Title
  Trestle Table
  
  
  Artwork Date
  between 1660 and 1680
  
  Artist
  ----------
  
  
  
  Life Dates
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  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  Medium
  Pine and maple
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 28 × 124 × 24 inches (71.1 cm × 315 cm × 61 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Furniture
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Mrs. Edsel B. Ford
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  46.85
  
  
  Copyright
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