Antique Library Tables
Library table
In its most general meaning, a library table is simply a table used for writing or reading in the library of a grand house. The term covers a wide variety of tables, from the slender eighteenth century writing table derived from the French bureau plat, to the solid drum-shaped tables which were smaller versions of the rent tables used in the offices of large estates. All were leather-topped, all had drawers in the frieze to hold writing materials and were 2 ft 6 in to 2 ft 8 in high.
For immediate identification only the derivations of the French bureau plat will be considered in detail: a writing table with a leather-covered surface and three drawers in the frieze. French bureaux plats are similar to the English lowboy, having two deeper drawers on either side of a shallower drawer, but the `kneehole’ is less pronounced and they are much longer. English library tables have a straight frieze, are free-standing
and have drawers on both sides, often three to one side and two to the other. Often there is a pull-out writing slide which can be lifted to make an easel over the centre drawer. Sometimes the whole central leather-covered panel lifts to rest on easel struts as a bookrest or `architect’s table’. Regency libraries were equipped with library tables and, from that period onwards, designs of all sorts were made. The Regency archetype is the design described below.
Signs of authenticity
1. Solid, close-grained dense woods with good figuring.
2. Tops of legs continue to form end pieces of drawer frieze, set proud, rounded or square.
3. Minimal lip above frieze, usually less than 1 in.
4. Legs terminating in simple peg foot below a turned collar.
5. Drawers lined with oak.
6. Underside well patinated where knees have rubbed.
7. Underside of drawers enclosed with pine or mahogany with strengtheners and corner pieces.
8. Good patination on inside front of drawer and drawer sides where they have been handled.
9. Lock escutcheons set centrally above handles on single-handled drawers.
10. Lock and lock rail.
11. Drawers are usually same width.
Likely restoration and repair
12. New leather inset panel.
13. New top with panel planed out of damaged solid surface and inset leather panel added. Grain will continue through in one direction.
14. Legs broken at frieze level: break in grain on point of join, often concealed by ring turning.
15. Top section of small pedestal desk mounted on legs. Grain of
all legs will stop short at frieze level, underside of drawers with new wood, or patched and stained where tops of pedestal were originally.
16. Library table tops reset on cheval supports – could have been altered during Victorian period, but more likely to be a recent event.
17. Cut down from more massive Victorian piece: drawers of equal width where centre drawer has been reduced. Tell-tale crack on underside of small overhang beneath veneered top edging where width and length have been reduced.
Construction and materials
Library tables were made in solid mahogany, or mahogany veneer on a mahogany carcase, and in rosewood or Brazil wood (closely resembling mahogany but of a redder, more chestnut colour). Library tables are distinctive and differ from all other tables. The legs were set out from the frieze, giving unusual lobed corners. The same is true of the French bureau plat where the legs are usually squared and set slightly proud of the frieze. The English favoured a smoother line, with rounded corners, undecorated except for a thin line of double stringing, framing and emphasizing the curve.
Detail
Drawers were oak lined, outlined in double stringing, often with squared handles on cast brass bolt heads with rosettes, octagonal or circular small backplates on either side of the handle. Legs were always elegantly turned and reeded or fluted, terminating in plain peg feet. The table edges were never carved or decorated, and there is almost no lip or overhang above the frieze drawers. Usually the edge of the table was decorated with two single thick reeds, continuing round the lobed corners. The drawers were usually edged with thin cockbeading or half-round beading, and the leather writing surface is inset and edged with cross-cut veneer.
Variations
Most common are circular rent tables used in the offices of large estates, with small drawers in the circumference of the frieze. Plain oak or oak-and-elm tables of solid construction often had drawers set in the ends as opposed to along the length and square chamfered legs. Country versions should be wider than a side table and may have plain square stretchers for extra stability.
Below: a late Regency design, probably provincial.
Above: drum or rent table.
Reproductions
Victorian
Variations are legion: octagonal leather-topped tables set on pedestals with drawers; drum tables set on central pedestals with bow-fronted drawers set fairly far apart (usually four on a small drum table, and not tapering in shape towards the centre); leather-topped tables on almost Davenport-type pedestals with two flaps, one on either side. Also popular were ,architect’s tables’ with tops lifting on easel supports. Victorian versions of the bureau plat had ornate, over-curvaceous serpentine lines, often with mass-produced mock-ormolu embellishments. ‘Gothic’ Victorian library tables with pillared legs on square plinth feet had carved edges to tops and applied or shallow machine-cut decoration on side friezes.
Twentieth century
Edwardian library tables were well-made and often quite well-proportioned but of mahogany veneer which was darker than earlier veneer. They often have a bigger overhang and lip moulding, and the grain of the veneer running vertical and not horizontal on frieze and drawer fronts, which can cause wrinkling, chipping or splitting.
From the turn of the century, there was a plethora of mass-produced reading/writing tables for public libraries, hotel
reading rooms and public institutions. Many library tables have been made up’ from other pieces of furniture, so it is particularly important to
examine similar-shaped pieces and styles with great care, and to scrutinize materials, detail and construction of the piece under consideration.
Price bands
Fine quality, c.1790, £3,000-4,000.
Later versions with less detail, £1,500-2,000.
Drum or rent table, c.1790, £900-1,200.