Featured Cherry Stand

I'm interested to hear some thoughts on the origins of this splayed leg oval top cherry stand. Poplar drawers. Walnut drawer slides.
Also curious if the top looks modified. Seems a bit small in proportion. There is overpaint on the lower part of each leg at about the same level. I was wondering if it may have had stretchers on the side possibly for leaf brackets. No sign of mortises though so likely just damage.

 

it's lovely..

 

I no expert but it looks right to me, ie I don't think it's been cut into a oval shape after it was made, if it had been the dirt marks where it's been picked up on the underneath wouldn't be so even. It looks old to me, pre-1850 and recently been refinished. I think it may have been made by a skilled amateur or a rural maker. Lovely table

 

It looks "right" to me, but it may well have been modified a bit over the years. I'm wondering if it wasn't painted originally. In some parts of the country, cherry wasn't valued and it might have been grain-painted.

 

Agrees, proportion is way off & additionally, one side looks straight or squared off so something happened.

 

Could someone have married two pieces, when the original top/bottom was damaged somehow? I don't think the shape of the top has been messed with, but it might have started out with another base. The flat side might have been deliberate, the better to fit against a wall.

 

Anything's possible, it's a country made piece mid 19th century i would guess. Splay leg tables are a very difficult build, particularly if a drawer is involved, many angles to consider and that takes time to get it right.
One of the neat things about American furniture is, it had a very quirky style in how it adapted european furniture designs. There were no rules, no guilds, no unions to interfere in furniture making.
Sometimes this quirkiness produced masterpieces, often not but take block front chests for example. Block fronts are as american as apple pie and had been around for decades when a shop in Newport RI operated by the Townsend/Goddard clan of cabinetmakers decided to put carved shells on them and BAM! a masterpiece was born.