Pier table

This pier table, a rare example of early 19th-century Massachusetts or New York painted furntiure, combines a simple neoclassical furniture form with elaborate Chinese-style gold and black surface decoration. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, American cabinetmakers imitated lacquer imported from China and Japan by combining European painting techniques with designs taken from Asian sources, called chinoiserie. Books on painted furniture detailed methods to achieve simulations of lacquered surfaces and also illustrated designs incorporating Asian figures and landscapes.