Card table

Inscription: On [A] an inscription has been stamped in black ink “Tho[illegible]C Pear[sall] for/H [illegible] Phyfe” and there are red acrylic paint museum numbers “L3215.22.”

On [B] an inscription has been stamped in black ink “MRSHENRYVWILMERDINGPAYNE” on the interior of the top frame and there are red acrylic museum numbers “L.2204.1” and “L 3215.21” on the rear of the frame.

By tradition, the card tables were made for Thomas Cornell Pearsall (1768-1820) and his wife, Frances Buchanan Pearsall (1779-1863). Initially, the Pearsalls lived at 43 Wall Street in New York. Around 1810, the Pearsalls moved to Belmont, a country estate inherited from Thomas’s father. Belmont, no longer extant, stood along the East River on approximately 20 acres between what is now 57th and 59th Streets. At Thomas’s death in 1820, the furniture passed to his daughter, Phoebe Pearsall (1813-1895) who lived at 3 Waverly Place and later 175 Madison Avenue in New York. She bequeathed the suite to her niece, Frances Pearsall Bradhurst (1834-1907), who married Augustus Field. Frances Field bequeathed the Phyfe suite to her daughter, Mary Field (1860-1942), who married Henry Wilmerding Payne and lived at 14 West 36th Street in New York. The tables passed to Mary’s brother, Augustus Field (1866-1948), then to his son, Malcolm Graham Field of Sloatsburg, New York. The Pearsall furniture was on exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 16 to December 15, 1922. Following this installation, it was displayed at the Museum of the City of New York from 1942 to 1946. The Pearsalls’ curule seating furniture and footstools were purchased at Parke-Bernet in November 9, 1946 by C. Ruxton Love who gave them to the Met in 1960. However, the pair of card tables were not in this 1946 sale. The Pearsall card tables became the property of descendant Malcolm Field of Sloatsburg, New York, then acquired by Ronald A. DeSilva of Garrison, New York, after which they were sold at Sotheby’s New York, sale 5473 lot 149, on June 26, 1986 to Juliana Terian and her late husband, Peter.