American Tables and Looking Glasses: In the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University

The Mabel Brady Garvan Collection of American furniture at the Yale University Art Gallery forms the core of one of the largest and most important collections of American decorative arts ever assembled. This book is a beautifully illustrated catalogue of the tables and looking glasses in the Garvan and related collections and completes a four-volume series devoted to Yale's furniture collections.
This volume contains detailed entries on 140 tables, 22 related objects, and 47 looking glasses ranging in date from the 1670s to 1990. Each entry includes at least one illustration of the object, extensive information on the construction, materials, and history of each piece, and a commentary discussing its importance. Two interpretive essays - "The Intersections of Life: Tables and Their Social Role," by Gerald W. R. Ward, and "Looking Glasses in America, 1700-1850," by Elisabeth Donaghy Garrett - place the objects in their social context and provide an introduction to the volume. Forty-three fake, altered, or misidentified objects are catalogued in a special section, and appendices provide additional information on terminology, woods, donors, and the antiques dealers patronized by Francis P. Garvan between 1915 and 1936.