{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O125377"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O125377/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011FC2378/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2011FC2378/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2011FC2378","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2011FC2380","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2011FC2406","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2011FC2435","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019MA7896","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O125377/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O125377","accessionNumber":"W.80-1962","objectType":"Architect's table","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This handsome table is an early example of the use of mahogany in English furniture.  Mahogany is a dense tropical hardwood, red in colour, with a straight grain.  In the early decades of the eighteenth century mahogany was imported principally from Jamaica, but timber from Cuba and Honduras was also used.  It became very popular as a decorative wood for veneers from the 1750s.  This table, however, is made largely from solid mahogany.\r\n\r\nAlthough at first glance the table appears quite plain, it has a number of refined details which add considerably to its elegance.  The cabriole legs are chamfered on the outer corners which creates a lighter profile while retaining the strength of the construction.  They end in pointed, delicately shaped feet. The table top has double-lobed corners, showing the influence of Chinese furniture, and a moulded edge which lightens the appearance of the thick timber.\r\n\r\nThe table top is hinged, and can be partially lifted to create a slope. A catch under the table top operates a small stop which would prevent large books resting on the slope from slipping. It has been suggested that the table was designed for use by an architect or draughtsman.","physicalDescription":"Reading table of mahogany.  The table stands on four cabriole legs with chamfered corners ending in spatulate feet. The table top has Chinese-inspired, indented, double-lobed moulding to the corners and ovolo moulding around the edges. The top consists of a narrow fixed board, to which is hinged a wide lifting top held on a sprung brass button catch in the centre of the back rail. This lifting section can be suppprted at an angle by an interior, adjustable ratchet to create a sloping surface for reading.  There are two metal levers at both sides of the table near the front, which  raise an immured book-stop when pushed in.  A compartmented drawer beneath has a high quality original handle and escutcheon, the lock plate on the inside concealed.  There is single beading around the drawer front. There is a double moulding to the top of the rail.\r\n\r\nConstruction\r\nThe cabriole legs have been cut from solid mahogany, with chamfered corners, except for the ears which are pieced out and backed with oak. The cutting of the solid block would have been done with a spokeshave. Integral with the legs are the corner blocks, into which are tenoned and glued the side rails, back rail and front rail running below the drawer. Resting on the four legs is a thin sheet of mahogany which covers the drawer, and which is cut with two rows of rebates to foot the top rest (see below). A thin mitred frame is nailed onto this sheet, concealing its fixings, and the rounded edges of the sheet below and the frame above create a double-rounded moulding just below the top. \r\n\r\nThe table top is made of three solid pieces of mahogany, the grain of the two mitred side sections running at right-angles to the main piece.  These three pieces have been cut across the width of the table, about 20cm from the front edge, to create a hinged adjustable reading and writing slope. Two brass counter hinges are fixed across the angled butt joint, using four slotted brass screws (which may be original as the slots appear to have been cut, by hand, slightly off-centre). The slope top is fastened with a brass catch, and rests on an H-form rest with ½ lap joints, fixed to the underside of the top by two strap hinges fixed with nails and mounted on a thin mahogany block. Each foot of the rest sits in the 7 ‘teeth’ of a row of rebates.  The underside of flap shows good original colour. The static section is fitted with an immured mahogany batten  book-stop (grained lengthways) which can be raised by pushing in a brass rod from each side. The rods and ends of the book-stop are probably angled so that the rods force the stop up, and the book-stop must be shaped so that it stops against the fixed section of top.\r\n\r\nThe drawer is made with a mahogany lining. The sides are through-dovetailed to the front and (at mitre joints) the back. The bottom (which consists of 2 mahogany boards and one replacement in oak, all grained front to back) and is nailed up at the sides into rebates cut in the side and front, and nailed up into the back, with an applied runner strip under each side. Around the edges of the solid front is a scratch moulding, and mounted on the front is a brass escutcheon and handle held by two small pins on the front, two large screws inside, and two small in the top. Four internal mahogany dividers fit into slots in the front, back and sides, mitred where they meet. The drawer is supported each side on an L-shaped oak rail nailed to the inside of the rails. At the front, right corner of the drawer is a loose, shallow mahogany tray, dovetailed with nailed bottom, which may be a replacement as it lacks the same waxed finish as the other internal dividers. This rests on four glued mahogany fillets (two of which are L-shaped). Inside the tray are two spots of glue or resin. Behind the drawer, glued to the back rail were two vertical oak strips acting as drawer stops (one missing).\r\n\r\nModifications\r\nOne board from the drawer bottom has been replaced in oak. Under the top sheet are five softwood glue blocks (and evidence of one missing).","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"mahogany","id":"AAT12221"},{"text":"brass","id":"AAT10946"},{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"}],"techniques":[{"text":"joining","id":"AAT137062"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Mahogany with some oak, and with  brass fittings","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2011FC2378","2011FC2380","2011FC2406","2011FC2435","2019MA7896"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"135","id":"THES49878"},"free":"","case":"BY6","shelf":"EXP","box":""},{"current":{"text":"135","id":"THES49878"},"free":"","case":"BY6","shelf":"EXP","box":""},{"current":{"text":"135","id":"THES49878"},"free":"","case":"BY6","shelf":"EXP","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Table","id":""}],[{"text":"Drawer","id":""}],[{"text":"Inner compartment","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1730","earliest":"1725-01-01","latest":"1734-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Claude D. Rotch Bequest","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"74","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"86.4","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"58","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Measured on 15/9/2010 by LC.","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Claude D. Rotch Bequest\r\n\r\nThe mahogany used on this table is most likely to be West Indian (Swietenia mahogoni); between 1722 and 1763 more than 90% of the mahogany imported into England came from Jamaica, with the remainder coming principally from the Bahamas. Following the Seven Years’ War, Jamaica’s share fell to about 78%, though it remained England’s primary supplier until the early 1770s. Mahogany furniture is frequently recorded in bills, inventories and advertisements from the early 1720s onwards. Until 1739 and the outbreak of war with Spain when the price doubled, mahogany was a fairly cheap wood, typically 3d.-5d per foot in the 1720s, similar in price to oak wainscott and considerably cheaper than walnut. \nMahogany was a plantation product, directly linked to the expansion of the transatlantic slave trade and the forced displacement and enslavement of Africans throughout the Caribbean, Central, and South American region. \r\nUnlike in the Bay of Honduras where economic activity was primarily driven by timber cutting, the West Indian mahogany trade was the precursor to agricultural expansion of sugar plantations. In both instances, these gruelling, laborious tasks were undertaken by enslaved people. The timber trade employed numerous names for West Indian mahogany, and as sources diversified in the middle to late eighteenth century, terms such as “Jamaica wood” became marketing devices or buzzwords that appealed to consumer expectations rather than accurately indicating the timber’s origin. \n(Adam Bowett: Early Georgian Furniture 1715 - 1740. (Woodbridge, 2009), p. 310); (Bowett, Woods in British Furniture-Making 1400-1900).\r\n\r\n\r\n","historicalContext":"At first sight this table looks like the sort of small side table fitted with a single drawer that were commonly recorded during the 1720s and 1730s in bedchambers and dressing rooms where they were used as dressing tables, but also in parlours, passages, ante-rooms, studies and libraries. The hinged slope and book rest on this table indicate that it was intended for reading (even thick volumes would sit steady against the raised stop). The top can be easily raised by someone sitting at the table, by reaching over to release the catch and lifting the top, which settles by its own weight at the required angle. With the top flat (and the book stop dropped and invisible), the table would have served for writing, with room in the lockable drawer for writing accessories or papers, or indeed many other purposes.Though not particularly heavy or difficult to move, the lack of casters or handles (sometimes seen on other small tables) indicates that it was not intended to be easily portable.\n \nSee <u>Georgian Cabinet-Makers</u> by Jourdain and Edwards, p. 28, where it quotes from <u>Purfoy Letters,</u> (Mr Purfoy writing to the cabinet-maker Belchier in 1749 concerning an artist's table recently delivered to him: \"we cannot open the Draw but do suppose it opens in the two slitts down the legs. I desire you will let me have a line next post how to open and manage it, as also what it comes to that I may order you payment\".\nA few days later he acknowledges the instructions and informs Belchier: \n\"I have found the way of the writing table which stuck together through damp\"","briefDescription":"Mahogany architect's table, English, ca. 1730","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Adjustable table\r\nAbout 1730\r\n\r\nEngland\r\nSolid mahogany with some oak\r\nFittings: brass or bronze\r\n\r\nBequeathed by Claude D. Rotch\r\nMuseum no. W.80-1962\r\n\r\nMost mahogany furniture is veneered and the joints are concealed. But at this period mahogany was relatively cheap in Britain so it could be used in the solid. In this table, the mortise-and-tenon joints are visible but unobtrusive. They are held by strong glue rather than secured by wooden pegs. \r\n","date":{"text":"01/12/2012","earliest":"2012-12-01","latest":"2012-12-01"}}],"partNumbers":["W.80:3-1962","W.80:2-1962","W.80:1-1962"],"accessionNumberNum":"80","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1962,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Inner compartment","Drawer","Table"],"assets":["2019LN8604","2019LU2321","2019LU0519"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-12-16","recordCreationDate":"2006-06-22","availableToBook":false}}