A Queen Anne period dressing table - A George III mahogany dressing table - country dressing table in walnut and fruitwood

Towards the end of the seventeenth century the small tables in walnut and oak or country woods specifically designed as dressing tables made their appearance. Before that it seems to have been the practice to use a
small side table with perhaps a small desk with sloping lid or mirror on it.
Since they were designed to be decorative as well as functional, dressing-tables have produced some of the most sophisticated and pleasant pieces of their periods. Their natural appeal to women of a much later
period than those of that for which they were designed has always kept them to the forefront of demand.
Dressing tables of the walnut period exhibit all the most desirable features of walnut veneered furniture: quartered tops with herringbone crossbandings; cross-grained mouldings; turned legs with early forms and
stretchers or, later , cabriole legs with scrolls, and so on. As a microcosm of period features and because of their small size, they have become very sought after and hence very expensive.
The later eighteenth century dressing tables in mahogany and country woods make no less ideal collectors pieces and hence are also greatly in demand. So far Victorian examples have not followed the analogy of
chairs and dining tables perhaps because the Victorians tended towards larger dressing tables without the same appeal.
Value points: The followingvalue points apply to the examples illustrated.
1. Top Surface. As with other tables, the condition, patina and figuring of the top surface are important. The more perfect and decorative the appearance, the more the .. factor will apply.
2. Structural Condition. This is again assumed to be good.
3. Legs. Depending on the period, the design,and always the proportion,of the legs is an important factor. Legs are always liable to damage and their condition and originality constitute a  factor if good.
A Queen Anne period dressing table and mirror set of c.1710 which are japanned in a light background with flower decoration. The table shows the typical arch shaping of the frieze and there are two acorn pendants
on the centre arch. The octagonal legs taper down to turned shaping and bun feet. The X stretcher with its scroll shaping has a central circular pedestal for a bowl. Note that the table top has a thumb-nail edge
moulding and there is a half-round or ‘D’ moulding on the front around each drawer. The mirror is described in the Toilet Mirror section.
Small walnut William and Mary period dressing table, c.1690. The top would be veneered in walnut, quartered to give a symmetrical pattern from the figure, and with a’herringbone’ or ‘feather’ inlay around it, inside the
cross-banding. The thumb-nail moulding around the top edge and indeed the decoration of the top is similar to chests of drawers of the period. A half-round moulding around the drawers is also typical. In the frieze it is usual to find a shallow centre drawer and two deep ones on either side, or two short drawers. The arched shaping of the frieze is typical. Drawer pulls are of peardrop shape in brass and on a circular or star-shaped plate, the handle being linked to a double strip of brass or iron which was passed through a small hole in the drawer front, parted, pressed down and pinned into the wood. The inverted cup form on the legs, as mentioned earlier, shows the Dutch influence, and the bun feet and shaped veneered stretchers are also typical.
Value Points: Decoration of top  Proportion of legs
Queen Anne walnut dressing table, c.1710. Note that the turned legs of the William and Mary period have now changed to cabrioles although the shaping of the frieze remains similar. The top edge moulding, veneers and drawer arrangement are still in the earlier style.
Quality of carbriole legs  Original handles
Oak dressing table of c.1740. The square section cabriole legs are still of slender shape but not the most desirable form, particularly if heavy. The shaping of the frieze has become much more sophisticated. Note the top edge moulding.
Value Points: Walnut  Fruitwood
A George III mahogany dressing table with square legs chamfered at the back, c.1770. An unpretentious table whose origins are clear from previous illustrations and of a type increasingly popular. The top edge still retains a moulding derived from the thumb-nail but now more sophisticated with an ogee curve.
Walnut dressing table, c.1720. The rather deep full top drawer gives a slightly top-heavy effect since the cabriole legs are rather slender. The top edge moulding is a refined thumb-nail type. The top veneer is quartered and cross-banded-, the drawers are edged with cock-beading and have a feather or herringbone cross banding. The handles are not original. A poor photograph which makes the piece out of proportion.
A later Georgian c.1780, country dressing table in oak. The frieze is shaped, but the slightly tapered legs hint at Hepplewhite influence. The drawers are cock-beaded and the top edge has a rather refined moulding.
Tapering legs tend to be a later feature.
George I period dressing table in fruitwood, c.1725. The arched shaping of the frieze is similar to that of earlier periods, with the projecting lip moulding or cock-bead around it. The heavy thumb-nail top edge moulding of the earlier period is now more refined. The tapering legs ending in pad feet are simpler than the cabriole but retain an elegance and proportion of design in a particularly English leg form. The handles are not original.
Later Georgian, c.1770, country dressing table in walnut and fruitwood. The three drawers in the frieze are cross-banded in fruitwood like the top, which is veneered in plain straight grained walnut. The legs are elm.
A satinwood dressing table of Sheraton period, c.1795, with mirror which folds flat to lie under the folding top. Similar designs for shaving tables and lady’s cabinet dressing tables of involved character are to be found, but this is one of the more popular designs of the period.
Value Points: Satinwood ….
Original Mirror
A mahogany dressing table of c.1820, with replacement handles. The square tapering legs and rectangularity of design reflect a Sheraton influence. The black stringing lines around the top and the drawers and frieze
are often identified with this period. Useful also as occasional writing tables, these pieces are understandably popular, as well as having a simplicity of design which allows them to blend easily with modern decor.

TABLES  side, lowboys (mainly cabriole leg)
Largely ignored in standard textbooks concerned with the development of furniture design is a delightful little group of tables which ranges from finely made town examples down (or should it be up) to enchanting small country fruitwood or yew pieces; these are eagerly sought after but are often impossible to prize from the hands of dealers in country furniture. We have reserved the term lowboys for three or four drawered side
tables often intended as dressing tables or for occasional use. As mentioned earlier, the dividing line between these and single drawer tables is often difficult to decipher. So we have produced this arbitrary distinction for the sake of convenience. On the question of fakes and improvements in general, little is done to these pieces. Some are veneered up which usually means walnut veneered top with oak legs or some other nonsense. However, when checking the underside note age on the bottom of the fretted front. It is not unknown for a large deep walnut veneered drawer front from an old bottom half of a tallboy to do service as a new front.
Rather more flashily veneered in high quality figured walnut. The cabriole legs are scrolled at the top and end in pointed feet. The form of drawers shows a variant, with a single long top drawer and two smaller ones
set beneath. The drawer edges are cock-beaded and there is an inlaid herring-bone line rather than crossbanding. The top is also quartered. c.1730
A solid walnut example with inlaid boxwood and ebony stringing lines. Note how a slight lip extends from one foot up the inside leg along the bottom of the carcase and down to the other foot as if emphasising the clean outline of the design. The cabriole legs are with shells and the feet show very interesting carved ‘folds’.
An attractive solid walnut example with good cabrioles all round, ovolo moulded drawer fronts and double half-round corners to the top (babies’ bottoms).
The bold brass handles are period if not original. As this a very good colour it is a desirable piece.
An example of the glorious individuality that British country furniture can provide and certainly one of the very few pieces of humorous furniture which exist. How else can one describe these legs but as `cobra cabrioles’ Apart from these extraordinary aberrations the piece has not too much in its favour. The arrangement of drawers makes it almost a writing table. c. 1730
A little cherrywood example. Note the same simple quarter-round moulding but ordinary corners. The drawer arrangement is unexciting and the cabrioles only just curve, nevertheless a pleasant country piece with glorious colour. Note the typical early decoration on the middle of the bottom rail. c.1740
The same top with half-round corners and tight quarter-round moulding of the period. This example is in oak and the cabrioles provide a problem; some collectors will find them attractive, others including this writer, will feel that they are poor-looking as though they have supported one of those large Chinese urns which weigh several hundredweights. Hence the wide price range.

TABLES  side, early, single drawer
We have separated out lowboys or dressing tables and have defined them as having three or four drawers, while side tables are defined as having one or at most two drawers.
The types are clearly related but side or centre tables are found well back into the early seventeenth century. However, for collecting purposes (i.e. availability) they start towards the end of the seventeenth century.
A charming fruitwood side table from the end of the seventeenth century with the typical column-shaped turnings that one associates with the mid-century. The square stretchers and thick top are also part of this design. However, the ogee fretted frieze indicates a later date. c. 1680
A superb olivewood oyster veneered side table with walnut spiral twist turned legs. The wavy stretcher is veneered on the top and the facing edge. This is a classic piece of the period. Note how the design is nearly identical to that for a chest on stand, and indeed one does see well-turned side tables with very poor tops (i.e. disposed stands often partly rebuilt), but this superb geometrically laid pattern could never have been intended for anything else than a side table top. c.1680
Moving on a decade, this marquetry piece with well-turned legs shows a later form of stretcher arrangement, one that country makers seemed to prefer to the last example; at any event it was widely copied. Note the inverted acorn in the turning near the bottom of the leg. The quality of the marquetry  of green stained bone and other warm colours  is important. c. 1690
Perhaps the country variant of the twists, though attractive, are only mere imitations of the original. c. 1700
An oak variation of 841. One is tempted to say country, but the turnings are excellent quality, bold and imaginative: only the earlier type of moulding round the drawer front suggests that it was made out of the fashionable area. c. 1700
An exuberant bobbin-turned stretcher structure derived from earlier pieces, c.1660, but the thick top with shallow moulding is of later date. A very popular design. c. 1690
A William and Mary design of crossover stretcher with slightly less interesting (though by no means bad) turning. One feels that the maker got into a mess at the bottom of the last round and didn’t quite see what to do so left it. He could perfectly well have repeated the top pattern at the bottom if he had measured correctly before he started. Thick moulding on top and below drawer. c. 1710
A much simpler fruitwood version of 845. Here the stretchers are of the normal type. The top and mouldings are very much the same and so is the date. c. 1690
Shows a delightful walnut table of very high quality both in design and execution, with cabriole legs of exceptional form in which the feet are ’stepped’ and the top contained within a fold backed by a scrolled shoulder under the frieze. The drawer is inlaid with an ebony and boxwood stringing line and cross-banded in cherrywood. c. 1710
An oak table cross-banded in walnut on the top and drawer front. The cabrioles are very pronounced and end on pointed feet. The shoulder pieces fit in well and the piece has a strong sturdy look without being over muscular. c. 1740
Shows a simpler, but still very high quality, version in cherrywood throughout, with cabriole front legs ending in pad feet and having a scrolled carving inside the knee. The drawer has an ovolo lip moulding and the back legs are the straight pad-footed type. A simple cross-band, also in cherry, decorates the edge of the drawer and top. c. 1720
A high quality example in dark Cuban mahogany. Notice how the cabrioles are just that bit more
restrained when compared with the last example. (By comparison with which, incidentally, it will weigh more than half as much again). The C scroll is well designed and executed and small carved decoration is
appearing above it. Notice the quarter round moulding we saw in the lowboy section on walnut, early for mahogany. The frieze could be more exciting. c. 1740
The introduction of the cabriole leg affected all furniture and, as we have seen with the lowboys, many interesting and very collectable examples were made. The development in design is predictable and clearly seen.
A country elm piece which fails to excite. The legs are chamfered and the moulding is a broad quarter-round which is repeated on the outside of the leg. In burr elm with a good deep rich colour one might treble the price.
A pad foot example with frieze, the drawer is scratched around the edge to look like cockbeading which suggests a date a shade later than the piece might otherwise be. c.1740
New classical elegance, serpentine front and tapered legs. A reasonable quality example, almost Hepplewhite  see the small square near the bottom of the leg which is a typical feature. c. 1780
Clearly from the restrained turned legs and the moulding a product of the early nineteenth century. In this design restraint is still the keynote; is there, one wonders, just the slightest hint in the tulip-shaped top of the leg that ‘things’ might soon be happening. c. 1800

DRESSING TABLES
Georgian enclosed mahogany on tapering fluted legs with a slide. 1760-1780
Mahogany, shown open with mirror resting on the rack. A fairly simple piece with none too elegant legs. 1760-1780
A mahogany dressing table of Chippendale style, with fretted brackets, slide and tray beneath. 1750-1700
An interesting enclosed dressing table/chest with concave tambour doors and drawers beneath. 1780-1800
A very fine harlequin dressing and writing table in fiddle figured mahogany cross-banded in tulipwood. The back section pushes down against a spring. A tambour concave cupboard beneath, tapered legs and original small leather castors. 1780-1800
more if it can be attributed to a known designer
A fine mahogany dressing table of enclosed type, shown open and closed, with cupboard below and a crossed flat stretcher with rimmed chamber platform. 1790-1810
A painted satinwood dressing table/chest, with Adam-style neo-classical decoration. This type of decoration was much copied in Edwardian furniture. 1780-1800
An interesting mahogany dressing table shown closed and open with hinged top which lifts to reveal its fitments. The oval handles are a replacement. 1790-1810
Late eighteenth century Sheraton type dressing table with the usual fittings. Decorated with shells and using stringing lines to vary the veneered decoration.
Early 19th century
A walnut kneehole of high quality on replacement bracket feet. The pillars in the recessed corners are fluted and the top is quarter veneered and cross-banded. The drawers have a simple, straight crossbanding, with a lip edge moulding. North country with new heavy feet with canted corner decorated with a blind fret. There is a slide under the top and the piece has single serpentine bracket feet. The three previous examples all have ‘double’ bracket feet, i.e. a foot under each front corner both forms are found in this period. 1740-1760

DRESSING TABLES  kneehole
A simpler walnut kneehole with herring-bone banding to the drawers. The top is quartered and cross-banded. Note that the shaped section over the kneehole space is, in fact, another drawer. Original handles. 1720-1740.
A solid yew wood kneehole with lip-moulded drawers. A fairly simple piece which will depend largely for its value on the colour and patination. A faded nut brown colour being much more valuable than a reddish tinge. Hence the wide price range.
Another mahogany kneehole, with fluted canted corners and a slide. Original handles. The photograph and lack of polish do not do it justice. Price assumes a deep rich colour. 1740-1760
There seems little doubt that this piece of furniture was evolved for bedroom or dressing room use; it has subsequently been found extremely useful as a desk. People did write in their bedrooms, of course, and we happily illustrate, in the mahogany examples, a piece fitted with both mirror accoutrements and writing paraphernalia. This is just to show that we are not prepared to be didactic; the concensus is that this is, generally speaking, an ‘upstairs’ piece, but there is no reason why it should not have been found useful downstairs as well.
Value Points: as for Chests, also if centre section pulls forwards
Here we are  an unusual but genuine fit-up under a hinged top and a false front top drawer. This mahogany piece is fitted both for dressing and titivation purposes as well as with ink-holding drawer and letter/ envelope rack inside. The drawers are cock-beaded. 1740-1760
A high quality veneered mahogany kneehole with slightly serpentine front, canted fluted corners and fluted central arch.
A solid mahogany serpentine-front kneehole on ogee bracket feet. Note that the foot has an extra facet to match the squared corner. There are in fact three main shapes of ogee feet, the most simple curves out where it meets the floor, the second is squared off just at that point but this one, the best type, has a more pronounced curve over the foot as well as the squaring off where it meets the floor.
An American block-front mahogany kneehole with characteristic ’shell’ carving over the central door. 1750-1770
A very decoratively veneered mahogany serpentine-front kneehole. One often sees early 20th century reproductions made broadly to this design. 1860-1880
An unusual oak kneehole fitted with a secretaire drawer (see below)  clearly a ‘writing’ piece. c.1750
A simple but very pleasant solid mahogany kneehole on bracket feet, with cock-beaded drawers.
A late nineteenth century mahogany kneehole in the Sheraton manner, with quarter-fan inlaid satinwood decoration in the corners of the door. There is also a slide.
A late nineteenth century carved kneehole desk in mahogany with a gadrooned edge to the top. 1890-1920