MAHOGANY GATE-LEGGED TABLE
My having over-stocked the house that day has kept me off buying higher class chairs, but one never knows what may happen. Quite recently I bought a gate-legged Spanish mahogany square ended table. I found it most unexpectedly the first day we decided we wanted such a thing, and it happened to be just the size desired. After a brief examination without going on my knees I told them to deliver it, and when it arrived legs uppermost I thought, “what a lot of worm holes for the money.” I said nothing aloud. Having ’phoned for a cabinet-maker, and after he had laid the table top downwards he dropped on his knees, and looking up with an expression of mingled pity and contempt for my credulity enquired:
“Have you bought it?”
“Yes.”
“And paid for it?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask how much?”
“Eight pounds.”
“I’ve bought tables like this for 35s.”
“Yes, some time ago.”
At this stage I fancy he thought he had put my wind up, for he hedged by consoling me with the remark “I saw a table like this fetch £11 10s. at a sale, and it had worm holes too.”
Now take warning by this, and be sure you look out for worm holes, but don’t be over anxious to buy more than you can count, and if you should, then do not pay much extra for them. Further, if you find these pests getting busy in any of your furniture procure a solution of corrosive sublimate of suitable strength and saturate the parts affected, but as the chemical is a deadly poison it is advisable to use a long handled brush and not dab it on with the fingers.
I thank you for your sympathy, but am delighted with my bargain, as the frame only needed the inside soft wood to be replaced, and the table with its fine Spanish wood top supported by well-fluted legs makes a handsome, convenient, and useful centrepiece, for dining purposes, and can be folded and put aside any time.
Chinese Chippendale Chair, Late 18th Century.
Oak Lancashire Chairs (Faked).
Plate X.
Cromwellian Gate-leg Table (Oak). Knife-box (Shell inlay).
Salt-box, 1659. Bowl, by Copeland.
Gate-leg Table, made of Foudroyant Oak.
Plate XI.
The tables shown on [Plate XIV] are very good late eighteenth century examples. The one with drop ends is mahogany, has a striking shell-like satinwood ornamentation let in the middle, and inverted crocus inlaid legs. The table with the folding legs was in a very dirty condition when I purchased it, and was called mahogany, and it was not until it was scraped that I became aware it was made of birch, thickly veneered with rosewood, and richly inlaid with satinwood. Oh, what a prize surprise.