Tilt top table

The predecessor of the Victorian tilt-top is the eighteenth-century tripod table and its contemporary cousin, the breakfast or supper table, also known as a ’snap-top’ table. In its original form, like all dining-room furniture, the snap-top was made in solid, well-grained mahogany with little embellishment except for cross-cut veneered bands of contrasting inlay. They were more often rectangular with rounded edges than circular or oval: four to six people could be seated round a rectangular table, but a round one could only seat four in comfort. However, by the turn of the century, the advantages of display had become evident, and from William IV onwards table tops became more and more decorative with intricate designs and inlays, shown to advantage when the table was in an upright position, like a huge firescreen.
By the mid-Victorian period, the table tops were still immensely fine and decorative, but the restrained bases had become bulbous and heavy, or were thick monopodium shapes on squat paw feet. The better designs adapted a plinth base with outreaching feet terminating in scrolls, dolphins, lion’s paws, or flattened claws with round, square or triangular plinths. Tops were oval, round or rectangular, with rounded corners. Some larger tilt-tops dating from the early nineteenth century are known as ‘loo’ tables and were designed to seat eight people to play the card game, ‘loo’.
Signs of authenticity
1. Good-quality veneer and inlay on solid mahogany.
2. Cross-cut veneer edging to borders.
3. Well-made, well-designed base, plinth or monopodium support.
4. No signs of tampering with top and base – screw-holes, marks, signs of cross-bearers being moved, on underside.
5. Correct proportions, both when table is horizontal and vertical.
6. On circular ‘loo’ tables and square supper tables, horizontally fitted castors on cast-brass shoes.
7. Central column in one piece with grain continuing up to the fixing block.
8. Good incised carving base with no chipping or damage.
9. No damage, replaced veneer, chipped or cracked round circumference or any part of table top.
10. Veneered on good quality Honduras mahogany or on oak, not stained white wood.
11. Bases, plinths, monopodium, in solid mahogany, not stained-up cheaper woods, brightly gilded.
Likely restoration and repair
12. Later inlays cut into plain veneers to increase value – grain will run in one direction only.
13. Bases married to better-looking tops, out of proportion, too decorative for base. Signs of
tampering on top undersurface.
14. Bases restored, repaired –metal braces under legs, knees, feet, castors reset where feet have been damaged.
15. Rectangular tops replaced with circular and vice versa. Proportions will be wrong, overall design incorrect. Best seen when table is vertical, not horizontal.
16. Replaced square platform on pillar where it has broken. New catches and snap-top fastening –no immediate disadvantage, but a weakness which will reduce value and may break with use.
Reproductions
Tilt-tops span a period of over 100 years of continuous manufacture, some with quarter veneer framed with decorative, restrained borders, some of simple, plain, good-looking veneer or solid woods, some with machine-stamped ground veneers and showy, poor-quality `inlay’. They were not made much after the beginning of the twentieth century, but such a large quantity had been manufactured that there was little need for reproduction. Labour was cheap and machines could reproduce many of the more difficult processes. Brass inlay and decoration could be inset by hand, painstakingly by craftsmen, or poured in a molten state into grooves in the solid timber and sanded down and polished by machine.
It is a question here of quality an eye for a good design and good materials, not really of authenticity. These tables have recently enjoyed a surge in popularity, and although it is doubtful if any are being made today, it is certain that table tops and bases are being exchanged and replaced to achieve a better-looking table than the original might have been.
Price bands
Rectangular breakfast table, in fine, plain veneer, c.1780,$800-2,500.
`Loo’ table, circular, plain, c.1800, £1,250-1,500.
Victorian, with rich decorative veneer, inlay, $l,740-2,250.
(Mahogany is the most expensive, followed by rosewood, then walnut.)
Variations, left: a circular George III snap-top breakfast or supper table, in well-figured mahogany veneer and broad cross-banding.
Right: flamboyant Victorian decorative inlay and veneer.
Construction and materials
The earliest snap-top tables, rectangular in shape, and circular `loo’ tables, were usually on
castors, so that they could be moved to the centre of the room for breakfast or supper or for playing cards. From c.1840 many tilt-tops were made without castors, on flattened, triangular or circular bases with ornamental feet. Generally they were heavy and not designed to be moved about. They usually had highly decorated table tops and were probably seldom used, since they looked better in the vertical position and were probably designed more for display than for use.
Victorian tilt-tops, for breakfast or supper tables, were made in solid mahogany, well-figured with good graining, in solid rosewood, solid walnut and in lighter-weight South American and African mahoganies, more reddish in colour than eighteenth-century mahoganies.
The snap-top fastening was a
stouter version of the small tilt-top
tripod fastening, with parallel cross-bearers fitting either side of a square platform on the top of the central plinth or pillar, secured with a heavy brass catch.
Detail
Tilt-tops for occasional use or for display were made in many veneers, including rosewood, walnut, burrwood, amboyna, tulipwood, kingwood, bird’s eye maple, with zebrawood, harewood, ebony, Coromandel, satinwood, laburnum and many other exotic and dyed woods for inlays.
There was a wide variety of pillar supports, ranging from flattened pillar-and-claw to triangular plinth with gilt-brass or bronze decorative feet, lion’s paw, dolphin’s head, bear’s paw and many versions of a scrolled foot, as well as reeded columns and decorated monopodium plinths. Later versions were more bulbous, over-ornate and ostentatious.
Variations
Provincial tables were often richly decorated in veneer and inlay for display, but their central supports lacked the finesse of good furniture-makers and were often badly proportioned. Country versions of the tilt-top are much the same as larger versions of the tripod table. They were most often made of plain oak, or in well-grained yew or fruitwood, the tops in more than one piece, but the grain being highly prized.