Know Everything About Tables
Usually the
oak woods were used to make the dining tables earlier. They were,
round, oval or long in shapes and sizes. Different types of woods
were used for different types of styles for making the antique
furniture that we could see today.
Dining Tables
The first dining
tables of which survivors remain are the type known as refectory
tables. They are made usually of oak, and one of the earliest, at
Pens Hurst Place in Kent, has a typical thick top of joined planks
supported on three separate trestles. Later, came a lower part in one
piece with heavy legs united by stretchers at their bases and rails
at the tops. The Elizabethan
dining table, also of oak and constructed in this manner, was
often carved and inlaid, the legs being turned into strikingly large
bulbous swellings, An alternative type at this period was the draw
table, which extended by means of leaves at either end sliding in and
out from below the principal top.
Refectory
tables stayed in use throughout most of the seventeenth century,
but towards 1680 came large circular tables on gate-leg supports.
Many of these are four feet or more in diameter and it seems probable
that their use was for dining.
Mahogany
dining tables survive in large numbers, and are of many types.
Early ones, of about 1740, have falling side-flaps supported by
swinging outwards the hinged legs; others are in sections and become
as many as four separate tables when taken apart.
Late in the
eighteenth century came the type with each section supported on a
central pillar with splayed legs and brass-capped toes; a type that
is very popular today for the practical reason that the legs are out
of the way of the diners.
Dressers
It is a piece
of furniture on which china or silver was displayed. In the
seventeenth century it was a long table
drawers, usually rose on legs, and made generally of oak. In the
eighteenth century came the fashion of fitting a superstructure of
shelves, sometimes with small cupboards at both end, and these are
often called Welsh
dressers. Rare examples are made of yew wood.
Dumb Waiters
A set of
revolving trays of different sizes supported on a central pillar, and
used beside the dining
table. Eighteenth-century mahogany examples had circular trays
and tripod bases, some nineteenth-century rosewood ones were oblong
and had four-legged supports.
Foot Stools
These came
into use at the end of the eighteenth century, and continued to be
popular from then onwards. The upholstered
tops were often covered in needlework.
Gate-leg Tables
These tables,
which have the distinctive feature of a gate-like hinged leg to
support the top flap, have been made continuously in one form or
another from at least the seventeenth century until today. The
earliest were made of oak and are rare, but those of the middle and
later years of the seventeenth century can be found sometimes. They
vary in size from a large
dining table some seven feet in length to small tea tables about
three feet in diameter.
In most
instances the supports are turned. Somewhat similar tables were made
also of walnut, but these are scarce. Small mahogany gate-leg tables
are often of a type known as 'spider leg1, because of their thin
supports. Many gate-leg
tables were made in Victorian times, when this method of
construction was very popular.
Gout Stools
Stools
that have adjustment to raise or lower their tops were made from
about 1790 for the relief of sufferers from gout. Another pattern, of
'X'-shaped construction, with thick padding, was made at about the
same date.
The more you
know about the furniture and its rich history the more you would be
giving interest in the details of the furniture
world. And the better the idea, the more care you would be
taking about the antique furniture. |
