Illustrated FURNITURE Glossary

Tables - STYLES & DESIGNERS
All links are to Buffalo, NY, pages unless otherwise indicated.

Tables - CONSTRUCTION

Art Deco style

Illustration:
Old Editions Book Shop and Café

 

Art Nouveau style

Illustration:

Arts & Crafts style

Illustration:
Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum
  Butterfly table
A Colonial American drop-leaf table with a broad butterfly-winglike bracket to support the raised leaf.

Candlestand

Illustration: Fairmount Park Woodford House, Philadelphia

Chair-table

Illustration: Fairmount Park Woodford House, Philadelphia
  Chinoiserie (sheen woz RAY)
Decorative work produced under the influence of Chinese art, applied particularly to the more fanciful and extravagant

Illustration:

 

Chippendale style


Illustration:
Kittinger Furniture Company

Drop leaf

Eastlake style

Empire style

Federal style

Illustration: Card table -
Fairmount Park Woodford House, Philadelphia

Game table

Illustration: C. 1820 English game table, Horace Reed House
  Gateleg table

Gothic Revival style

Illustration: Fillmore House Museum

Hepplewhite style

Illustration: 20th century reproduction folding circular card table - MacKay Homestead, Genesee Country Village, & Museum

International style
 

Library

Lyre

A type of trestle table supported by a post in the shape of a lyre which was a Classic Greek stringed instrument of the harp family used to accompany a singer or reader of poetry

Mission

Illustration: Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum

Neoclassical style - American (Federal)

Neoclassical style -European

Pedestal table

Usually a round or an oval tabletop supported by a single member base. This support is often a column or turning which ends in a heavy base with spreading feet.

It is found in 18th-century English furniture, as well as in 19th-century Regency and Duncan Phyfe designs.

The pedestal table is also a popular modern design with the table surface resting on a thin support which flares outward as it reaches the floor.

Pembroke table

Federal Pembroke table:

  • Table with two rectangular drop leaves
  • Simple top and leaves with straight plain edges

The term "Pembroke table" was first used in England in the 1760s and referred to small elegant tables with short rectangular leaves. It was supposedly named after a Countess of Pembroke in Wales, who first ordered it.

In America, Pembroke tables were made in the Chippendale style before the Revolution, but were particularly popular in the Federal era. Made in many part of the young Republic, their place of origin may be difficult to determine.

Piecrust table

A round pedestal table with the raised edge of the top surface carved in scallops, like the crimped edge of a pie

A common design in 18th-century England and America, especially in Chippendale's mahogany tripod tables

See also: piecrust molding

Pier table (Console table)

A table designed to stand against the pier, the part of the wall between the windows.

Often used in a hall or placed between windows in a parlor, it was also the right height for use in a dining room as a serving table.

In America the term is used loosely to refer to a table designed for use against a wall, a side table

New York examples were often simply designed but featured elegant ormolu or painted decoration.

In Philadelphia, designs were more elaborate, with scrolls replacing columns and bottom shelves cut in more complex patterns.

Standard Empire form from 1810 to 1840. See also Victorian style - pier table glass .... Eastlake style - pier glass

Pilgrim style
AKA Colonial style or Jacobean

Queen Anne style

Refectory table

A long, heavy dining table.

So called after the refectory or dining room of the monks in ecclesiastical institutions of the Middle Ages (Gothic period). iI was a slab of wood or several fitted planks on trestles. This developed into a firm, massive table with four bulbous legs, heavy stretchers, and ornate carving.

Heavy stretchers are close to the floor.

Renaissance Revival style

Rococo Revival style
1840-1870

Roycroft style

 

Shaker style

1800-1914

Sheraton, Thomas

 

Specimen table


Stickley, Gustav style

Illustration:
  Swing leg table

Tea table

Tilt-top tables

A pedestal table with a hinged top which can be dropped vertically when not in use.

Snap table: A small tripod table with a a hinged top held in a horizontal position by a spring catch

Trestle

Postlike or pierced upright supporting a table top.

A trestle foot is vertical and ends on a horizontal board on the ground; inverted T shape.

Originally, all tables were merely loose boards placed upon trestles or horses. In the Middle Ages, the "dormant table" was a permanent structure of table with trestles attached; this became the fixed-table type.

The trestle form survived, as distinguished from the four-legged or the pedestal table.

Tripod table

A pedestal table supported by three outward-curving legs.

Adam and Chippendale designed many.

 

Victorian style

William & Mary style

1685-1725

Wright, Frank Lloyd

See also:: The Collectors Weekly: "Tables" Illustrations with ebay links


Photos and their arrangement © 2005 Chuck LaChiusa
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