Library Table

Maker Unknown

Daten. d.

MediumWalnut

Dimensions29 1/2 × 35 1/2 × 68 1/4 inches (74.9 × 90.2 × 173.4 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Mary Telfair.

Object number1875.52

On View

Not on view

CopyrightThe images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextThis Victorian walnut library table has a leather-paneled top and curved-molding drawer fronts beneath. There are eight legs, turned in William and Mary style with inverted cups, conjoined in two sets with turned stretchers. Decorative arts and historic sites offer museums the opportunity to tell stories of the past with tangible objects, to see the actual places events occurred, the chairs the actors sat in. This desk offers an intimate view into William Brown Hodgson’s 19th-century study in the Telfair House. He stands at this very desk in a portrait painted for, and still displayed in, Georgia Historical Society’s Hodgson Hall in Savannah. Mary Telfair’s will called for her family home to become a “Library and Academy of Arts and Sciences,” a place for learning and teaching in the Western academic tradition. Few people embody that tradition better than her brother-in-law William Brown Hodgson, who almost certainly influenced her decision to establish the Telfair Academy, now part of Telfair Museums, in her will. Over his 16-year diplomatic career, he visited cities and countries all over the world, including Algiers, Constantinople, Egypt, Panama, and Tunis. He studied the languages and customs of many of the people he encountered during that time. As a result of his travel and studies, Hodgson learned 13 languages, including Berber, Sanskrit, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Persian, French, and Spanish. Hodgson ultimately published works on ethnology, linguistics, and geology and became a curator of the Georgia Historical Society, as well as a member of the America Philosophical Society and the American Orientalist Society. He was elected to the geographical societies of two countries, the Asiatic societies of two countries, and the ethnological societies of three countries. While the desk serves as a reminder of the intellectual prowess of Hodgson, his achievements must be considered in context with his participation in and profits from the Southern slave system, which provided him with the leisure to pursue his academic interests.

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