Tripod table with birdcage mechanism, to allow the top to turn, and tilting top, of tropical hardwood (mahogany top, the tripod probably padouk). The legs and stems are carved overall with trailing stems, leaves and flowers, the edges of the top carved with pairs of s-scrolls flanking shells, with sixteen leafy and floral sprigs pointing towards the centre of the table.

Table of tropical hardwoods, with circular top of mahogany supported on a shaft with tripod base (possibly of padouk). The edges of the top (which is cut from one wide board) are scalloped and carved at intervals with 16 bosses of flowers, foliage and fruit with rococo ornament of alternate shells and S-scrolls. The underside of the top is fitted with two cross battens, slightly curved in profile, onto which the upper board of the turning mechanism is tenoned and between which it pivots, allowing the table to be stored with its top parallel to the shaft. This mechanism or 'birdcage' has upper and lower boards into which four pillars are tenoned at the corners, with large through tenons that show on the upper and lower surfaces of the boards, with the scribe marks used in setting them out. The lower board is pierced with a large hole, which fits over the top of the shaft of the table, which is tapered and stepped to receive it. The top of the shaft touches the underside of the upper board of the birdcage and revolves against it; there is evidence of wear on the board at this point. The top of the shaft is pierced through with a tapering, rectangular slot, through which a removeable tenon is fitted. When this is drawn out, the top and birdcage can be lifted off the shaft. The baluster shaft rests on a tripod stand with eagle-clawed feet. The legs are dovetailed into the base of the shaft, the joint reinforced by an iron plate nailed to the underside. The feet are each made of three pieces of wood, glued together, which is an unusual method for the eighteenth century in Britain, where they would more normally have been cut from the solid. The feet are fitted with casters with laminated leather rollers. The shaft and tripod are profusely decorated with acanthus, and a pattern of floral scrolls carved in low relief in the solid. On one leg, close to the shaft, it is clear that the legs was cut from a waney-edged board (a board that includes the natural edge of the tree and thus on one side is irregular). The carving, however, continues over the short, irregularl section.

The table has undergone repair and the tapering tenon that fixes the top to the shaft is a replacement. An additional collar of hardwood has been glued round the central hole in the lower board of the cage, presumably to repair wear to the board from its turning on the main stem. The underside of the top shows multiple repairs. The cross battens may be replacements and are fixed with several screws that are countersunk and filled. The top is quite thin in the centre (which may indicate that it has been carved from a plain, thicker top) and has split across in two places, at right angles to the battens. Underneath the top, the shadows of two earlier repairs to this split are visible, one square, one round. The catch for the tilting mechanism is a replacment, as is the tongue (the shadow of a larger original is visible). There are plugs over screws on two of the struts and evidence of repair. The whole surface has been repolished, probably in the 20th century.

This table was purchased from William G. Watkins, 8 Joyce Avenue, Sherwood, Nottingham (Registered File 28/5246). When it was acquired it was believed to be English, c. 1760 and to be entirely of mahogany. It had come to Mr Watkins from his great-great-grandmother, a member of the Daw family and was said to have been originally at Foster's Court Farm, near Gloucester (probably, in fact, Frocester Court Farm, in the village of Frocester, seven miles south of Gloucester). The farmhouse is not mentioned in early histories of the area and may have dated from the nineteenth century.

During conservation in January 1965 it was found that there are 5 screw holes in the cross-supports of the top (including the present retaining screws). There are also two marks on the underside of the top which appear to have been made by a circular plate and a rectangular plate.

Debate about the table has continued since the 1950s and its authenticity, its date and its place of manufacture have all been questioned. John Irwin, Keeper of the Indian Deparment at the V&A 1959-1978, thought that this table had been made in Java, for the European market (or for Europeans living in India) and cited the rather stiff interpretation of Rococo as typical of such work. Others have thought that the base at least was made in Canton (now Guangdong), China, with the top added.
In the 1980s the dealer Ronald Lee gave it as his opinion that the whole table had been made by a Russian craftsman working in Kingston in the 1930s. Mr Lee claimed to have seen several of his pieces but this history has not been substantiated. Dr Amin Jaffer, of the Asian Department of the V&A, writing in 1998, discerned parallels with Indonesian carvings but could find no pieces with close similarities. The thinness of the wood in the central part of the top may suggest that the present carving was made into a normally thick, but plain, top - either British or Asian in manufacture.

In November 1982 an almost identical table was brought into the Furniture and Woodwork Department for opinion and photographs are in the departmental files. There were small differences between the two and the table brought in had no castors. That table had been bought at Bearne's Salerooms in the West Country (either Torquay or Exeter) but no date of sale was given in departmental records.

An identical table was sold at Sotheby's, London, 18 November 1983, lot 66, and it is possible that this was the one shold earlier at Bearne's.

It may have been that table that was offered for sale by Sotheby's in November 1983 (date not noted), lot 66. Reference was made to the V&A table. Another (perhaps the same) was sold by Christie's 11 April 1985, lot 23.

Another similar table was in the Gubbay Collection at Clandon Park, the National Trust House in Surrey (NT 1440568). The tripod of that table was of a slightly later form, without the break in the serpentine line of the legs. In 2016 images of another table with similar carving were sent for opinion. The carving of the top of that table was similar in style to this table (thought with smoothly serpentine legs and with under-scrolled toes) and in that case the wood had been identified at Kew as being mahogany.

Clearly a group of such tables exists but none of them have provenance which allows a firm identification to be made. The V&A table W.31-1959 shows some similarities to this table in the carving but includes inlay of brass wire. Brass-inlaid furniture, fashionable in Britain between about 1730 and 1760, is often associated with the maker John Channon, and is known to have been copied in Canton. It is always possible, of course, that the tops of these tables (some British, some Asian in origin), were all embellished by extra carving.

This table was acquired in 1928 as a fine example of Georgian furniture, made in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century. However, since the 1950s, argument has continued concerning the date, place of origin and authenticity of the table. From the early eighteenth century British furniture styles were copied in Canton (now Guangdong) in China for sale to British people living in India, and occasionally such pieces were brought to Britain by Europeans returning home. In Java (Indonesia) similar imitations of European pieces were made, the designs used there slanted more towards the taste of the Dutch colonial power. This table is currently thought to be from Indonesia . A number of tables with similar carving are known but unfortunately none of them has a clear history that could throw light on the origins of the group. A smaller table in the V&A collections (W.31-1959) shows some similarities. If you have any information that may help identify this table, please do get in touch with the Museum.

W.53-1928