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.

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.

Sutherland table

These slim, practical folding tables were reputedly named after Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria during the early decades of her long reign. The combination of a cheval-type construction and gate-leg is far more successful and elegant than it sounds and they are among the few really successful designs of the Victorian period.
The top of a Sutherland is so narrow that it is able to stand against a wall without taking up much space, yet when the flaps are up and supported on two swinging gate legs, it is large enough for a small supper or breakfast table. The frame is almost like a heavy Victorian clothes horse in construction: one or two slim baluster-turned uprights join a simple frieze below the table top. On the best, the gate legs tuck in beside the bracket foot. Others have half-gates with two legs swinging closed in the centre on either side of the central stretcher.
Sutherland tables were such strong little work horses that many of them have only survived in a dilapidated state and some of the more decorative, with slim bands of contrasting veneer, have been broken up to make the tops of questionable pairs of card tables.
Signs of authenticity
1. Undersides of flaps with scoremarks, pronounced where top of gate leg has been swung out and back.
2. Good patination on undersides of end overhang where it has been frequently lifted and moved.
3. Dark, glossy woods with very little decoration.
4. Cheval construction stoutly made with well-turned, simple decoration.
5. Splay of legs compact, not sprawling.
6. Solidly made underframe of mahogany or oak, to withstand hard use.
7. Flaps falling to correct height, just above curve of bracket, to show an inch or two of leg.
8. Good patination under flaps where they have been continuously handled.
Likely restoration and repair
9. Edge of flap split with weight of flaps and constant use. The repair likely to split again with the weight of the flaps after some use.
10. Repairs to join on edge of rule hinge.
11. New turned uprights, replaced uprights from parts of other table legs, even staircase balusters, stained and polished with mottled results, not caused by age or wear.
12. Made up from solid
Victorian mahogany clothes horse, built on similar lines, with new top and underframe.
Construction and materials
Sutherlands are usually about 3 ft bin long — a comfortable size to be lifted by one person. They were made in plain mahogany with mahogany cheval supports, feet and gate legs, with flattened bracket feet joined by a turned stretcher.
They were extremely narrow, not more than 9 in across when the flaps were down, which were very deep and fall to a line just above the stretcher. The two gates on either side are recessed into the underframe, and swing out on wooden hinges.
The flaps have brass hinges on a rule joint, set close to the ends of the joins, with one or two additional hinges under the flap to support the weight when lifting and lowering.
Detail
The upright supports are usually turned or baluster shaped, or twin turned legs socketing in to a single bracket foot at either end. Sometimes, on more ornate versions, there is a small drop finial on the undercurve. Sutherlands are always on castors, sometimes set beneath slightly outward-scrolling feet, or a compressed inward scroll. They are usually about 2 ft 4 in —more the height of dining furniture than writing furniture, and early versions were always in solid woods and not veneered. Later versions for provincial drawing rooms and parlours were veneered in the ubiquitous birds’ eye maple and were much more showy and not so elegant.
Variations
Often the tables are found in oak, and very pleasing when well-polished and aged. However, oak tends to split quite easily, and the weight of the flaps imposes a considerable strain to flap edges and table-top edges at the hinges. Others may be found in yew wood with elm tops, and in fruitwood with oak tops.
Broader versions of this simple design melt into narrow gate-legged tables with deep flaps, made over a century earlier in standard `country’ woods and combinations of woods. Usually the cheval supports are abandoned in favour of four simple straight legs, joined with stretchers. The flaps may be rectangular or rounded.
Reproductions
Small spindly Victorian and Edwardian `tea tables’ are low enough to be used by people sitting in sprung armchairs or sofas. These were sometimes round-leafed, sometimes square or rectangular, but the principles of construction are basically the same: narrow top, often on four turned legs with thin stretchers, and two gate legs to support the flaps.
Heavier, chunkier tables of full height, also on four stretchered legs, usually have flaps of less depth. They are almost a cross between the delicate Pembroke and the functional, unobtrusive Sutherland.
Price bands
Ornate frames, veneered tops,$300-500.
Nineteenth century, plain, solid wood, £200-260.
`Spider leg’, £500-750.
Below: the black paint and excessive turning is characteristic of a late Victorian Sutherland.
Below: in contrast to the table on the left, this elegantly turned and inlaid piece dates from c.1870.

Queen Anne drop-leaf table

Although popularly known as `Queen Anne’, the drop-leaf table did not really come into widespread use until mahogany
Signs of authenticity
1. Heavy weight of mahogany –San Domingo or Cuban.
2. Grain of flaps and central fixed top all running parallel to joins.
3. Each piece of table top cut from a single piece of timber.
4. Underframe of thick solid timbers of oak or close-grained red pine.
5. Scrape marks on under
surface where gate has been opened and closed.
6. No screw holes or bore holes of any description on any part of undersurface.
7. Patination under flaps and on sides of gates where they have been constantly handled.
8. Thickness of timber would be a minimum of 1 in.
9. Flaps correctly proportioned to legs when not raised.
10. Wooden hinges with three `knuckles’.
11. Rule joints and hinges with thumb-moulding continuing round full circumference of top.
12. Circular tables seating four until c.1740, then squared table tops as well as circular.
13. Correct height – 2 ft 4 in for dining tables.
Likely restoration and repair
14. Legs broken and replaced, particularly on gates. Grain either running right across from underframe or breaking on a line with bottom of underframe where replacement has been pegged in.
15. Gates broken on hinges and repaired with white pine,
stained.
16. Flaps split, cracked from weight of wood on hinge.
Repaired but weakened. A break in grain, thick streak of fake patination will indicate plugged crack.
17. Replaced flaps with slight difference in thickness, duller patina and signs of old screw holes on undersurface, or new hinges with machine-turned screws.
became available, after the end of Queen Anne’s reign. The earliest drop-leaf tables were also made of Virginia walnut from c.1720 onwards, when supplies of good French walnut ceased. The curving cabriolelike leg, terminating in pad feet or a more elaborate ball-andclaw foot, is distinctive of the period generally known as Queen Anne, but the style continued well into the reign of George i. Not until then were dining habits adapted to the Continental style, with all the diners seated round a large table, with matching chairs, dinner service and glasses. Until then the English custom of serving food from a long buffet-style table was prevalent and smaller dining tables were mainly in use in the morning room and parlour for occasional
meals such as breakfast when small numbers of the household sat down at different times. The drop-leaf table was a more sophisticated version of the gate-leg table, with four legs only, two of which hinged out to support the flaps on either side. Drop-leaf tables were circular at first, but from c.1740 square flaps became more popular, because they could accommodate more people in comfort.
Tables for eating off were made in solid wood and were not veneered because of the damage that might be caused by spillages or hot dishes. The advantage of mahogany was that it was immensely dense and strong, did not warp or bend and, unlike walnut, was impervious to worm.
Construction and materials
The technique of making chests and chests of drawers with a carcase of different woods spread to table making, and the drop leaf table is among the earliest to have an underframe of oak or close-grained red pine, with the main parts of solid mahogany or Virginia walnut. A few very fine tables were also made in English walnut, but they are rare to find. As with the gate-leg table, the legs continue up in one piece to the underside of the top, whether on the hinged or fixed leg. The gates of drop-leaf tables formed part of the underframe construction and had wooden or brass hinges with three ‘knuckles’.
Most drop-leaf tables were never very large, and at most seat six on later, square shapes, and four on circular tables of the earlier period. There are conflicting dates for the first general use of mahogany, but as a rough guide it can be said that except for isolated and exceptional
Variations
Period country versions were made in oak, or elm, or oak and elm with stretchered frame and gates, as simplified drop leaf tables. The balance of a genuine four-legged drop-leaf table is hard to achieve, and some drop-leaf country versions are found with half-legs folding against each other when the flaps are down, opening to a six-legged table when raised, but few of these have survived.
Simple column turning persisted in oak on legs of Georgian drop-leaf tables, plain chamfered legs being the later period alternative. Good country versions follow the rules of mahogany drop-leaf tables: the grain runs parallel to joins which cases, it was not used for furniture before 1730-35. From that date until the 1750s, when duties and taxes were lifted, mahogany was imported in ballast, and its quality varies considerably, although most furniture-makers preferred to use the best, fine-grained, dense San Domingo or Cuban timber.
Detail
Brass rule hinges set close to the edge of the table, secured with round-ended hand-turned screws, were countersunk into the underside of the fixed top and flap, which had a rule join, with the moulding continuing round the full circumference of the table. Legs were high-curving, virtually cabriole, with plain pad feet or hoofed feet are thumb-moulded, hinges set well in, approximately over legs when flap is down, but the grain of underframe is vertical for strength; dowelling persisted long after it was replaced with screws in mahogany versions. Traditional methods of construction were used for country pieces long after they had been superseded by improved techniques.
Below left: George II provincial drop leaf in oak, with pad feet, it has slightly wider fixed table top than mahogany versions.
Below right: late seventeenth-, early eighteenth-century country version.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
Plain rectangular square-legged drop-leaf small dining tables were manufactured from c.1840 onwards in light-weight African mahogany, cheap Honduras mahogany or baywood. They usually have deeper flaps, falling quite close to the floor. The construction of early drop leafs is difficult to reproduce and has a limited market in commercial terms.
Later versions of simplified gate-legged tables have been made continuously through to this century, as general purpose tables for domestic households, hotels and public buildings, and as dining tables for the average home. Poor-quality materials, machine-cut timbers, coarse-grained pine underframes and lack of craftsmanship in detail and proportion indicate mass-manufacture.
Price bands
Fine quality mahogany, $1,500-1,800.
Country version in oak, £800-1,200.
Gate-leg version in oak, £750-1,000.
Fruitwood (flaps in two pieces), £1,000-1,250.
c.1800, reeded leg, £650-1,800. Early nineteenth-century plain mahogany, 1300-500.
Below: late eighteenth-century drop leaf, c.1800.

Side table

1. Grain running from side to side of table top.
2. On solid woods, considerable figuring where timber was split rather than sawn.
3. Back edge of table top sometimes unfinished, with no overhang.
4. Drawers of oak, carcase wood of oak. Pine drawers or other parts of carcase in period piece indicate Dutch origins.
5. Where there is
featherbanding and herringbone inlay, `arrows’ always go clockwise.
6. Simple lip moulding to three sides of table top.
7. Beam moulding to drawer edges made from a single strip with wood grain continuing through each bead.
8. On walnut tables, signs of worm boreholes in solid timbers — walnut is particularly susceptible to worm.
9. Good patination on sides. and top edges of drawer where it has been pulled out and handled constantly.
10. No lock or lock rail to drawer frame.
Likely restoration and repair
11. Legs restored, replaced where worm damage has ruined originals.
12. Original veneer planed down to the oak carcase beneath: no depth of patination on surface woods.
13. Solid walnut tops replaced: signs of worm-tracks indicate timber planed down from thicker piece of different origin —wormholes only show on surface of wood.
14. Solid walnut with little patination, wrong construction: may be Victorian copy
`distressed’ to look older.
15. Made up from larger table in bad state of repair. No
patination on overhang of table top — oddly placed boreholes and marks on underside.
16. Legs repaired or replaced: grain will break on the join —quite often concealed by ring turning.
Historical background
By the beginning of the seventeenth century there was much more ’standing’ furniture in most houses. In particular, side tables came into use for many different functions. They stood in spaces between windows, against walls with side chairs, and were used as an early version of the ‘dressing table’.
The art of twist turning came to England from Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, together with the fashion for embellishing cabinets and the edges of drawers with ’string of beads’ mouldings in ebony or ebony-coloured woods. Sometimes legs of small decorative tables were of a much darker wood than the rest of the piece.
The cup-and-cover shape of table and cabinet stand legs, although principally associated with the arrival of William of Orange in England, had been used for several decades before, from the furniture imported from Holland. At about the same time the art of veneering transformed both the construction and the appearance of English furniture. Side tables span this revolutionary change, being made first in solid woods with twist-turned legs, and later in quartered veneer with serpentine stretchers. Stuart side tables frequently had one full-width drawer in the frieze.
Construction and materials
Side tables, being small pieces of furniture, were made in a much wider variety of woods than large tables. They are found in oak, fruitwood, plane and, occasionally, Cyprus. At a later date they were made in solid walnut, and in walnut veneer on an oak carcase and underframe.
Most side tables had a single drawer in the frieze, with one or two handles. Drawers were either plain-fronted or with small fielded or coffered panels, contemporary with chest of drawers of the period. Their construction was still based on the solid frame, with stretchers between all four legs, either decorative or plain.
Around 1680 the cup and cover shape of legs with serpentine stretchers, similar to those on stands for chests, were quite common. There is always a good overhang on three sides of the table top, and the back edge will be narrower, for side tables were made to stand against walls and in
Variations
These traditional ‘occasional’ tables were made in a variety of shapes, woods and finishes for 100 years or more and the differences in construction, woods and finish rather than stylistic change are the guide to period. Characteristic country-made versions may be of plain oak with square stretchers and no carving or decoration. Others had a semi-circular flap and a plain gateleg on a wooden hinge, opening to an elongated half-circle. Some are found in plain oak with a simple frieze and no drawer. Nice examples can be found in fruitwood, sometimes with a small drawer in the frieze which does not recesses, and the back stretcher is plain, undecorated and flush with the edge of the back.
The timber of the legs continues up to form the side frame of the frieze drawer and the corners of the frieze. All joints were simple mortise-and-tenon, secured with pegs or dowels. The drawers had through-dovetails or stop-dovetails, with the bottom boards running from front to back in more than one piece. The bottom boards were nailed to the sides with clout nails and a simple rebate joint.
Detail
Early walnut veneer was usually quarter-cut and framed in a broad band of cross-cut veneer, sometimes edged with feather-banding or herringbone with mitred edges.
Drop handles usually had rosette-shaped backplates fixed to the drawer fronts with two steel shafts driven through and splayed and flattened on the inside.
run the full width of the piece. Dutch side tables, imported during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were veneered or decorated with marquetry and had double-twist legs. Generally they were more elaborate than those in the English style and were usually made on a pine carcase with pine drawers.
Left: plain oak table of the late seventeenth century.
Centre: William and Mary oak table with pierced decorative frieze.
Right: an elaborately decorated table of the Stuart period.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century
The most common ones on the market today are of Victorian oak, recognizable by decoration such as carving on the frieze, twist turning, polished and darkened to age the wood.
There are also solid walnut copies, stained and bleached where the stain has rubbed off or faded. Many reproductions are in oak, elm, and Virginia walnut, with straight legs or later machine-turned balusters, bobbins or twists and flat stretchers, from almost any date from c.1830. They were made as little side tables for use in passages, halls and dining rooms.
Spanish, Portuguese and Italian tables with ebonized legs, string-of-beads moulding around the drawers, simulating the style of tortoiseshell and ebony chests and cabinets, were imported in large numbers during the mid-Victorian period.
Price bands
Stuart oak, with frieze drawer and good turned detail, £1,900-2,200.
William and Mary oak with good detail, i1,500–1,800.
Country, period, oak or fruitwood, c.1700, £500-800.
Nineteenth-century oak copies, 050-500.