TEA TABLE

This iconic object in the MESDA collection was for many years attributed to the workshop of Peter Scott (ca. 1696 - 1775) of Williamsburg.  Recent research has reassigned the piece to the Fredricksburg area of Virginia, and to the workshop of Robert Walker, a Scottish émigré.  The masterful carving of the tea-table's pie-crust top is the work of an as-yet unknown carver who was employed by Walker's shop. 

Robert Walker, and his brother William (1705 - 1750), a master builder built and furnished many of the Northern Neck's grandest houses.  Working alongside their journeymen and apprentices were enslaved craftsmen.  In 1743 Spence Monroe - father of the future president - apprenticed to Robert Walker to learn the "Trade & Mystery of a Joyner."  Walker also agreed to take Monroe's slave Muddy as an apprentice as well.