Antique Tables

Few pieces have as much enduring appeal as tables. Second only to chairs in the world of collectible furniture, antique tables are functional pieces of artwork with histories that continue to seduce buyers at auction.

Antique tables have run the gamut of design. Since their first iterations, cabinetmakers and furniture manufacturers expanded their offerings with innovative designs based on earlier styles.

The design of the table corresponded with its purpose. Trestle and refractory dining tables were initially designed to be set up along or against walls instead of their common modern orientation in the center of rooms. Console tables were customarily made with no rear legs, depending on brackets to mount them to the wall. Pier tables, also called hall tables or side tables, were so named because they were placed in the wall space between windows.

Specialty pieces like drafting and artist’s tables were fitting with sloping, adjustable tops. Card tables, often round in shape to more easily accommodate additional players, sometimes employed folding tops to allow for more flexible storage when not in use.

Quick Facts

• In 2015, a dining table by Danish designer Peder Moos sold at a Phillips auction for a record £602,500
• In 2014 a pair of Regency rosewood library tables from The Old Refractory in Kent, England, sold at Skinners for £43,750
• A circa 1929 Gio Ponti extendable dining table sold at an October 2015 Phillips auction in London for £11,250