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Art Deco Tables: DINING TABLE, MAPLE CONSOLE TABLE, BRITISH DRUM TABLE, FRENCH MAHOGANY TABLE, BRITISH DINING TABLE

ART DECO TABLES
AFTER WORLD WAR I, designers working
in the Art Deco style created tables of extraordinary richness and originality. continuing the Art Nouveau tradition in a less flamboyant manner.
TRADITIONAL FORMS
Many Art Deco furniture designers based their designs on traditional table forms, such as the early oak trestle table and the drop-leaf designs of the 18th century. They used richly figured timbers, such as walnut, yew, and mahogany, and decorated their tables with crossbanding in exotic woods, such as ebony and tulip wood.
Emile-Jacques Ruhimann and Jules Leleu created writing tables, dressing tables, and pier tables that echoed the forms favoured by the French ehenistes of the l8th and I 9th centuries. They used exotic materials, such as lacquer and expensive wood veneers, and their tables often featured decorative details, such as drawer pulls of ivory, slender legs terminating in sabots of gilded bronze, and table tops covered with leather, sharkskin, or marble.
The Irish-born designer Eileen Gray designed finely crafted and exquisitely lacquered tables whose abstract shapes
were frequently defined by different-coloured lacquers and costly inlays of foil and mother-of-pearl.
BOLD INNOVATIONS
The furniture designers who followed a more Modernist Art Deco path, such as Marcel Coard and Pierre Chateau in France, and Donald Deskey in the United States, made tables for a wide variety of uses in bold geometric shapes, such as cubes, cylinders, and pyramids. They used innovative materials characteristic of the machine age, including mirror glass, chrome, and tubular steel, and interpreted traditional forms, such as the tilt-top table with great ingenuity.
Pierre Legrain combined luxurious and machine-age materials with severity of form in a striking low table entitled “Python”, which he designed in 1928 for Pierre Meyer. Made entirely of wood, the long, rectangular top and two supports are entirely sheathed in snakeskin. The supports fit into a rectangular base, which is the mirror image of the top, but is veneered in nickel plate. Two nickel-plated ovoid discs encircle the square supports, completing the symmetry of the design.
The stepped top of the table is a distinctive Art Deco feature.
The octagonal shape of the table top is innovative and striking.
The substantial apron adds strength to the table design.

BRITISH DINING TABLE
This solid, architectural table is from a table and six chair set designed by H&L Epstein. Made from walnut, the table top is octagonal in shape, with black-lacquered banding running around the edge. Two rectangular block legs
with block feet, connected to each other by a rectangular panel, support the table top. The crossbanding around the edge and the thick inlaid band of crossbanding across the table top add a subtle but decorative touch to the distinctive markings of the walnut veneer.
c.1935.
The overhanging top is reminiscent of early trestle and refectory tables.
The two box-shaped table legs replace the usual four
supports at either end
The central support links the two table legs.

FRENCH SIDE TABLE
This rosewood side table, designed by Michel Dufet, is composed of geometric forms, which are characteristic of the Art Deco style. The circular rosewood surface has a glass top, and is placed on two rectangular supports. The
whole table is supported on a lipped tray base. Furniture designers who favoured the Modernist thread of the Art Deco style created all kinds of tables with strong geometric outlines, including interlocking circles, triangles, and cubes. c.1930.
This 12-sided table is decorated all over with mirrors to create an unusual, completely mirrored surface. The table top is supported by slightly tapering square legs. c.1930.
This geometric occasional table is made from walnut and has an octagonal, crossbanded top that is raised on a rectangular column. The column is centred on a square, spreading base.
This Lucie Renaudot rosewood, mahogany, and ivory-inlaid side table, has a circular top with ivory dentil edging. The stepped, square-section legs are united by a square undertier. c.1925.
This table is made from walnut and has a circular top, attached to tapering square legs that support the whole table. The table top is covered with a mirrored surface. c.1930.
OCCASIONAL TABLE
WALNUT TABLE
Maker’s label
FRENCH MAHOGANY TABLE
MIRROR TABLE

BELGIAN COFFEE TABLE
FRENCH U-SHAPED TABLE
Designed by De Coene Freres, this Belgian lyre console table stands on a lipped tray base. The base supports a highly polished lyre-shaped frame, a popular feature of the Art Deco style. The frame in turn supports a narrow, rectangular table top. c 1930.
This rosewood coffee table, designed by De Coene Freres, is veneered in walnut and has two legs made of chrome tubing. Two crossed, lipped tray bases support the U-shaped structure. The chrome tubular legs reinforce the rectangular table top, which has rounded corners. c.1930.
This graceful French side table has a rectangular top with a stepped edge. It is supported by a tulip-shaped structure, rather than conventional legs, with decorative chrome detailing at the base. The table has been restored and piano varnished, hence its glossy black appearance. c.1930.
BELGIAN LYRE CONSOLE TABLE

BRITISH DRUM TABLE
This sturdy oak drum occasional table is designed in the style of Betty Joel. A broad central oak cylinder supports three circular table tops, each arranged one above the other. c.1935.
BRITISH QUARTETTO TABLE
The quartette table is designed by H&L Epstein and is made from burr maple. The set of four small tables of graduated size nest together and are supported on square legs. c.1930.
CHROMIUM TABLE
This chromium-plated occasional table has a circular top inset with a black glass panel above three curved supports. The supports are attached to a circular ebonized base on flattened bun feet.
MAPLE CONSOLE TABLE
This console table has a maple top with a moulded mahogany edge, and a single drawer at the front. The two U-shaped supports are united by a stretcher beneath and have arched feet.
AMERICAN DINING TABLE
This extension dining table, designed by Paul Frankl, has a white rectangular gesso top with gently bowed edges and two 30.5cm- (12in-) long leaves that rest on two curved mahogany supports. Each of the mahogany supports
incorporates three V-shaped slats. The robust, architectural nature of this piece is typical of Paul Frankl’s furniture designs, which reflected trends in contemporary architecture. The chevron pattern of the supports is reminiscent of key design elements on the Chrysler Building.
DINING TABLE
This elegant dining table is part of a table and eight chair set. The table has a simple rectangular top, with pull-out extensions. A pedestal base, with two C-shaped supports, carries the solid table top. The eight chairs
that accompany the dining table have solid backs with upholstered seats. The graceful interaction of interlocking arcs and rectangles adds a powerful three-dimensional and
distinctively avant-garde element to the shape of the conventional rectangular dining table.

Nabeshima and Hirado
NABESHIMA
The porcelain of Nabeshima (named after the ruling clan) was made at Okawachi, north of Arita, probably from the latter half of the 17th century until c.1870, exclusively for the ruling shogun and feudal lords. As this ware was the preserve of the aristocracy, little of it except “kiln wasters”, or seconds, would have reached the West before the late 19th century. A few examples have been sold at auction since World War II (including some of questionable date). Apart from a few pieces of hollow-ware – bottles, vases, boxes, and censers –most surviving items are dishes. In that category the majority are saucer dishes with exceptionally tall foot-rims (over 1.2cm high); the remainder are small pieces of various shapes.
Nabeshima ware is arguably the most refined of all pre-19th-century Japanese porcelain. The decoration is imaginative, timeless, and meticulously executed. The most popular themes are seasonal flowers or wintry trees, sometimes combined with underlying or juxtaposed patterns, which may be derived from waves, Chinese trelliswork, or basketry. This type of decoration could only have been
achieved by using a stencil or some kind of transfer-printing technique. For example, the repetitive geometric pattern called “calm-water” (seigaha) shows no evidence whatsoever of individual strokes, with their inevitable variations in intensity. Designs are often entirely outlined in underglaze blue with enamel infilling of iron red, turquoise, yellow, pale manganese, and black detailing, in a technique that recalls the doucai
porcelains dating from the early Ming period in China. The glaze is of a soft, pale, greyish-blue tone.
A feature of the characteristic Nabeshima saucer dishes is the underglaze-blue decoration on the
tall foot, which is found on most
pieces. The decoration consists
of a continuous band of
elongated “teeth” resembling
a comb, known as kusitakade.
The underside of the rim is
usually painted with beribbonec
coins (known as “cash”), clump
of formal flowers, or undulating foliage. Like much Nabeshima ware, saucer dishes tend to be decorated in colours, as this was
more desirable than the standard blue.
HIRADO
Some of the earliest Japanese blue-and-white porcelain was produced at Hirado, near Arita, toward the beginning of the 17th century. Production at the sites of Kihara and Nanko was made possible through the employment of immigrant Korean potters. The later wares, from another site at Mikawachi where production is thought to have begun c.1760, are the most familiar. These wares, either white or blue and white, were made from the very pure clay from the island of Amakusa, allowing the most intricate modelling and refined potting.
Production consisted of censers, brushpots, jars, vases, bottles, teawares, bowls, and dishes. From c.184( some of the larger pieces were applied with dragons or shi-shi (a depiction of the Buddhist lion) as either handles or knops. Other pieces were moulded in shallow relief with isolated flower-heads, symbols, or trellis. Blue-and-white wares were sensitively painted in a slightly blurred underglaze blue of varying tone. The most popular themes are children at play or vertiginous landscapes, but birds and large botanical subjects were also used. Border embellishment is invariably small and includes pointed leaves and pendant tassels.

Nabeshima
• BODY virtually flawless
• POTTING thin and always very neatly executed
• GLAZE subtly grained; a soft, bluish appearance
• PALETTE usually polychrome – underglaze blue, iron red, yellow, turquoise green, pale manganese/tan, and, very rarely, black
• FORMS mainly flatwares; saucer dishes
• DECORATION natural subjects
Hirado
• BODY pure white with an “icing-sugar” texture
• GLAZE a soft, bluish hue
• PALPATE either white or blue and white
Marks
Nabeshima wares arc never marked; Hirado wares are sometimes marked with the place of manufacture, occasionally with the potter’s or decorator’s name, or, most rarely, with a date