Games table, English, 1675-90, with 6 pierced, double bine legs, lift-out top panel, and drawer; walnut, other woods and ivory on a carcase of oak and softwood

The table is decorated on all four sides and stands on six legs of double open twist form, one at each corner and two in the middle, all with bun feet. The two centrally placed legs are linked by a short flat stretcher to each other and to the corner legs by flat serpentine stretchers. All flat show surfaces are veneered with a mix of woods, with extensive use of a burl wood, visually identified as walnut. The legs may be walnut, rather than ash that was also used at the time this table was made; the abacus appears to be oak.

The table has one drawer (with a single wooden knob) and the top is fitted with a removeable panel, decorated on both sides (one side with a chess board) which is secured and can be removed by wooden catches accessible above or within the drawer. This reveals a well (4.8cm deep) which is veneered for backgammon. The drawer has reduced sides to accomodate the table well, and threesmall cut-outs to accommodate the catches for the games panel). On the under side of the table top are twin wooden catches with finger pulls; these fit into rectangular mortices in the side of the games panel, holding it in place. A third wooden knob catch 'inside' the drawer, can be pushed up, which raises the games panel so that it can be grasped and removed or flipped over.

The fixed part of the table top is veneered with a triple border, a wide border containing a stadium motif on each side and a heart shape at each corner, and two narrow borders with cross-banding. The removeable games panel sits flush. On one side the design consists of a lobed quatrefoil with a central, sixteen-pointed star, with a four pointed quarter star at each corner (the points of ivory). The reverse shows a chess board with light (possibly holly) and reddish brown squares, within a dark border. At each end is a rectangle of burr, enclosed on three sides by a narrow border with pale double stringing, and an outer border of cross banding. The backgammon well is veneered on the floor and sides with what appears to be walnut, the reddish spears possibly stained walnut, the white spears possibly sycamore.

Given by Mr Frank Green

Given by Frank Green from his collection at the Treasurer's House, York. Described in the acquisition RF (16/863 and 16/1043, on Nominal File Green, Frank W. MA/1/G1639/1) as 'probably Dutch, 17th century'.

This conspicuous table with its striking openwork legs and richly veneered surfaces would have suited a well furnished room used for entertaining. It may even have had accompanying ensuite candlestands. However, it quickly converts into a games table for chess, draughts or backgammon and could be moved around the room for play.

Bowett (p.289-90) observes that 'games tables were uncommon before the late 17th century. The emergence of purpose-made tables is probably not a reflection of the greater popularity of games playing (games were widely popular after the restoration), so much as the changing use of established furniture forms.' He notes (p.118 ff) that oyster veneered tables were lower down the scale of luxury than floral marquetry tables. The legs of olivewood tables were usually of turned ash, blackened to accentuate the figure, brown stained and varnished (quoting John Evelyn, 1670).

Twist turned columns and furniture legs started to become fashionable in European design from around the middle of the seventeenth century. In a double bine spiral, the "bine" is the wood that twists around a central axis, whether the centre is solid or open. The double-bine variety found here "[has] two spirals cut on the same shaft at one hundred and eighty degrees to each other." (Bowett p73) This type of twist could be laboriously carved by hand, but Dr. Robert Plot's The Natural History of Staffordshire (1686) depicts the turning lathe devised by John Ensor of Tamworth for executing the skilled work of creating the twisting stems of these pieces. Ensor claimed that four or more twists could be worked, and much more quickly than they could be carved by hand.

In the second half of the seventeenth century, walnut for fashionable English furniture was largely imported from France via London (Bowett 2002, p312), where this table is most likely to have been made.


Sources used
Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714: From Charles II to Queen Anne, (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 2002)

Carlton Hobbs, Richly Furnish'd: Baroque Furniture in England 1660-1735 [selling catalogue] including an important group of seat furniture from the collection of Nicholas Grindley LLC. Foreward by Dr Adam Bowett (2019)

On loan to Hampton Court Palace.

W.38-1916