The Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins

Carter, Charles. Carter the Great’s Center Table. New York: Martinka & Co. [?], ca. 1910. Heavy carved gold-leaf wooden table on cabriole legs, used as the centerpiece for many of the effects performed by Carter in his globe-trotting illusion show. Folding servante at rear. 42” wide. Worn from use. Green felt-covered top a modern replacement. Owned and used by Charles Carter. Sold together with a later photograph of Carter and Evelyn Maxwell beside the table. With a letter of provenance from Carter biographer Mike Caveney. At one time the elaborate Louis XIV-style magician’s center table was perhaps the most important piece of apparatus he owned. It provided not only a suitable working surface for the miracles he performed, but acted as an aid in the execution of many of the tricks, as well. Carter, like Herrmann, Kellar, Robert-Houdin, and the other masters before him, relied on his table as both a focal point of his stage setting, but also as a secret assistant for several of his signature feats.