Dining-table of oval, gate-leg form, in mahogany, the legs carved with acanthus on the knees and with hairy paw feet.

Oval dining-table of gate-leg form, in mahogany, the four cabriole legs carved with downward-scrolling acanthus on the knees, issuing from five-petalled flower heads, the legs terminating in lion paw feet. The leaves of the table are undecorated except for a rounded shaping on the upper edges. The frame supporting the table is of oak, the main elements tenoned into the blocks at the top of the legs, with a wooden knuckle hinge cut in the centre of each long cross rail, so that one end of the rail is fixed, the other forming part of the gate structure, tenoned into a block at the top of the gate legs, the blog cut away on the inside edge to locate with the outer edge of the frame when the table is closed. The shorter rails of the frame, visible when the table is closed, are of mahogany, each tenoned into a block at one end and jointed with dovetails at the opposite end into a thinner plank of oak, which runs back behind the hinges of the long rails and is nailed to the inside of the fixed half of the rail, completing the box structure of the frame. The leaves of the top are each set with iron strap hinges underneath, and fold with rule joints.

Bequeathed by C. D. Rotch

Bequeathed by Claude Rotch RF 61/3157c

Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the concept of a dining-room was almost unknown in England. Most households, even the grandest, took their meals off simple tables that were brought into parlours or saloons for the time that they were needed. Gate-leg constructions was a clever invention to allow large tables to be stored in smaller spaces when not in use.

W.34-1962